Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Marta de Menezes
Abstract Keywords
Throughout art history, numerous artists have explored connections to science. In bioart
the society of today, the relationship between art and biology has been acquiring biotechnology
special visibility. Moreover, the current importance given to science and technology genetics
by today’s public opinion directly drives an increased awareness about the relation- experimental art
ship between art and science. The public has been eagerly following breakthroughs
in scientific research, albeit with mixed feelings: simultaneously awe, hope and fear
for its potential misuse. Such awareness about biological sciences and biotechnology
has been having an increasing influence over artists, where the artist is no longer a
mere observer of the scientific research and not quite a science researcher, but rather
an art researcher. This particular position has led to the development of strategies
to promote the exploration of possibilities deriving from a cross-talk between artists
and scientists. This is a new art practice, based on a ‘risk-based’ situation; a timeless
research strategy to develop new methods of practice, new media and new ways to
manipulate materials for artistic expression. This is art research.
During the twentieth century, the key scientific advances – such as the discovery of
the DNA structure, in vitro fertilization, transgenesis or the sequencing of the human
genome (in the twenty-first century) – were perceived by society in diverse ways.
The progressive incorporation of those concepts by society itself led to a point where
biology and the medical sciences became the most promising areas of science. It is
therefore not surprising that those same scientific disciplines have marked the devel-
115
Marta de Menezes
116
Biology as a new media for art
scientists conduct their own research. My research, and its similarities to and
differences from scientific research (although often occurring in a shared labo-
ratory), is a crucial point in the outcome of my projects and their formalization.
I believe it is also an important issue in the engagement of my fellow scientific
collaborators and in our personal relationship when creating the artwork.
In my research and practice, I not only try to make some sense of the
concepts I use and develop for my artworks, but I also aim to experiment
with new materials: alive, pulsating, changing materials that are adequate to
express these concepts. This is fundamental to what I do.
In ‘Nature?’ (1999), I created live butterflies whose wing patterns were
modified for artistic purposes. Such changes were achieved by interfer-
ing with the normal development of the wing, inducing the development
of a new pattern never seen before in nature. The butterfly wings remain
exclusively made of normal cells, without artificial pigments or scars, but
designed by an artist. These wings are an example of something simultane-
ously natural and resulting from human intervention. However, the artis-
tic intervention leaves the butterfly genes unchanged, so the new patterns
are not transmitted to the offspring of the modified butterflies. The new
patterns are something that never existed before in nature, and that rapidly
disappear from nature, never to be seen again. These artworks literally
live and die. They are an example of art with a lifespan – the lifespan of a
butterfly. They are also an example of something that is simultaneously art
and life.
But those butterfly wings are also the representation of the question I use
as the title for the work. The concept I question with ‘Nature?’ is our idea of
what we consider natural or not. I have not yet been able to get a satisfactory
answer for the initial question, and I do not expect to get it any time soon.
Yet the tension emerging from the reasoning to try to understand why we
consider something natural or not is an important concept in our society.
For art, there is of course another question that is raised by my state-
ment that the work is a representation. Is it really a representation or rather
Figure 1: ‘Nature?’ (1999). Live Bicyclus butterfly with modified wing patterns.
117
Marta de Menezes
118
Biology as a new media for art
efforts that combine several areas of science. It no longer makes much sense
to say that one country is more developed scientifically than any other, when
so many publications are the result of international collaborations. Science
has no nationality any more.
Likewise, there has been a tendency in the art of today to move towards a
more collaborative endeavour. In many cases, it is necessary to bring together a
team of people with different expertise for the completion of an artwork being
presented at festivals or exhibitions of new media. However, unlike research
institutions in science, it is still infrequent to find in the arts a clear system
providing collaborative support to the process of contemporary art research.
In science, it has been increasingly difficult to identify the individual genius
behind a discovery (as demonstrated in recent years by the large number of
authors per scientific communication, or the rarity of Nobel prizes that are not
shared). In the same way, the idea of a single artistic genius is a myth that has
been artificially preserved by artists, gallery managers, collectors and buyers
for a very long time.
As in science, advances in art are supported by the shoulders of giants
who preceded more recent creators. In spite of this, there are a few research-
ers in both science and art who push the general knowledge of the field more
intensively, and thereby acquire a more prominent notoriety.
My point is that art-as-research is now conducted by collectives of art
researchers contributing towards general and global knowledge, rather than
by individual geniuses isolated from their peers. As such, given that it gener-
ates a form of knowledge, the aspect of research in art could and should be
incorporated into universities as research groups, with clearly defined research
projects and objectives subjected to evaluation, just as with the sciences. One
may think this is already the case, but current projects dealing with this field
are frequently associated with knowledge in art theory or history, and not
to knowledge connected specifically to art practice. For me, the existence of
many examples of art research in new artistic practices at universities’ infra-
structural levels is not clearly evident. And where such research programmes
do exist, they are often centred in the theory of the researched practices, or in
the production of more artworks by the artist themselves. As a result, we are
missing out on several consequences of research in new media and its artistic
expression, including new processes, new fields of artistic practices, new strat-
egies of production and exhibition, new methodologies, new policies of fund-
ing, new technologies and new aesthetics.
I have the strong conviction that, like art itself, artistic research should be
mainly a practical research field, without it being reduced to a mere simple
exercise in art production. This does not imply that the artwork cannot be
included in criteria for evaluation in art research. The artwork is the real proof
or demonstration of a complex process marked by investigative components.
However, an artwork is not a thesis in itself (in principle) or even a hypothesis.
If anything, it can be compared with an experiment that contributes to the
demonstration of a hypothesis. As such, the argumentation about the process
of conception, research, production and even the result of its exhibition can
be fundamental to the clarification of an idea and its contribution to the field
of art. The way by which all this process adds to an already existing body of
knowledge should be the major criterion for the possible evaluation of artistic
research. In other words, the relevance of a research project should not be
determined by the quality of the artwork itself, but rather by the novel contri-
bution brought to the artistic field: what new media, new technology or new
119
Marta de Menezes
120
Biology as a new media for art
121
Marta de Menezes
In any of the possible outcomes, I make the case that it does not matter
how personal the project may be. The key issue is that it must create prec-
edence, experience and perspectives that will be useful for both the author
(of course), but also potentially other artists looking for different strategies to
develop their work, think about their research and proceed with their practice.
In fact, I am extremely grateful to the many artists who contributed their own
art research to the development of my art practice.
References
Ascott, Roy (2004), ‘Planetary technoetics: Art, technology and consciousness’,
Leonardo, 37: 2, pp. 111–16.
Bulatov, Dmitry (ed.) (2004), Biomediale: Contemporary Society and Genomic
Culture, Kaliningrad: The National Centre for Contemporary Art.
De Menezes, Marta (2003), ‘The artificial-natural: Manipulating butterfly wing
patterns for artistic purposes’, Leonardo, 36: 1, 29–32.
––––– (2006), Retrato Proteico – Proteic Portrait, Spain: MEIAC.
Judson, Horace F. and Maddox, John (1979), The Eight Day of Creation: Makers
of the Revolution in Biology, London: Jonathan Cape.
Kac, Eduardo (ed.), Signs of Life, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Shapiro, Alan (2011), ‘Of art, biotech and the body in the world, by Claudio
Cravero’, 24 March, http://www.alan-shapiro.com/. Accessed 20 July
2015.
Suggested Citation
de Menezes, M. (2015), ‘Biology as a new media for art: An art research
endeavour’, Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, 13: 1+2,
pp. 115–123, doi: 10.1386/tear.13.1-2.115_1
Contributor details
Marta de Menezes is a Portuguese artist with a degree in fine arts from the
University of Lisbon; she also holds an MA in History of Art and Visual Culture
from the University of Oxford, and is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of
Leiden. She has been exploring the intersection between art and biology,
working in research laboratories to demonstrate that new biological technolo-
gies can be used as new art medium.
De Menezes created her first biological artwork, Nature? (1999), by modi-
fying the wing patterns of live butterflies. Since then, she has used several
diverse biological techniques, including functional MRI of the brain to create
portraits where the mind can be visualized (‘Functional Portraits’ [2002]); fluo-
rescent DNA probes to create micro-sculptures in human cell nuclei (‘nucle-
Art’ [2002]); and sculptures made of proteins (‘Proteic Portrait’ [2002–07]),
DNA (‘Innercloud’ [2003]; ‘The Family’ [2004]) or incorporating live neurons
(‘Tree of Knowledge’ [2005]) or bacteria (‘Decon’ [2007]). Her work has been
presented internationally at exhibitions, in articles and during lectures.
She is currently the artistic director of Ectopia, an experimental art labora-
tory in Lisbon, and is director of Cultivamos Cultura in southern Portugal.
www.martademenezes.com
www.cultivamoscultura.org
122
Biology as a new media for art
Marta de Menezes has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that
was submitted to Intellect Ltd.
123
Copyright of Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research is the property of Intellect
Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv
without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print,
download, or email articles for individual use.