Friday, June 16, 2006

Summer - 夏天到达, 阳光灿烂














As promised, the second instalment of the year, I bring before you a scene from "SUMMER", from the awesome film Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring - a film that metaphorically represents the changes we endure in life through the transition of the seasons of the year. Summer, as you can see, is a time to get frisky...

Science in Art and Art in Science - 科学和艺术











We just had a seminar by Dr Frances Stracey, from UCL, about the world of Transgenic Art - the novel pseudo-art form that combines genetically manipulated animals with “artistic expression” and has come to the limelight spurred on by recent controversies such as Alba, The Fluorescent Bunny (Pictured above).

Yes, the world’s first Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) bunny was engineered in 2000, by a French artist, Eduardo Kac, who, among other things in his career, implanted a computer chip in his leg. But such was the outrage when he displayed his transgenic rabbit, that half of France protested and a whole society was set up dedicating itself against his art, aptly named “Free Alba”. The negative connotations of experimenting with biology date from before the advent of the human genome, including Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” and H.G.Wells' "The Island of Doctor Moreau" (Good book!) to the modern day apocalyptic scenarios like Margaret Atwood’s “The Oryx and Krake” (Great book!) and films like the "Alien" series.

Of course artists don’t come under the same constraints as scientists when it comes to “using animals”. In Britain, the land that invented animal loving, the Home Office has strict rules guiding our treatment, experimentation and exposure to animals for scientific investigation – possibly more strict than necessary. Yet we as scientists still come under attack by the likes of the Animal Liberation Front for supposed animal testing, which in fact has nothing to do with medical research science (a lot of the horrific images they show are of cosmetics testing). Whether it is science or art, there are limits to how far animal experiments dare to go because it is so controversial. “Transgenic art”, says Stracey, “is likely to remain on the fringes of the art world simply because of all this controversy.”

The upshot of combining biomedical science in art is communicating important advances in technology with the general public. It brings to the streets the wonderful and beautiful things that are being invented in the lab. Despite the multiple hazards of introducing biology in the context of art, it is ultimately the art that sells the science in glorious images and videos found in journal publications (however much the publisher is trying to gain credit for him/herself).