Hello, today I’ll be presenting the paper “Perspectives of Bioartists and
Community Lab Organizers on Working with Living Organisms,” written by myself,
Nisa Asgarali-Hoffman, and Dr. Foad Hamidi.
What is bioart?
Bioart is a contemporary art movement that is comprised of a
hybrid of artistic and scientific practices which engage in the use of biomaterials,
such as living cells, tissues, and organisms, and scientific techniques, protocols, and tools.
Here are two examples of bioart.
While there has been research in the HCI community
on the promising collaborations between HCI researchers and DIYbio participants,
there has not been much exploration into the unique qualities associated with artistic
practices that could be beneficial for the HCI audience, a gap we hope to address with this work.
We conducted 12 semi-structured interviews with bioartists, community biology lab organizers,
and educators, some of whom fit into several or all of these categories.
Next, I’ll present some of our findings.
We found 4 themes and 9 sub-themes across Interviews, but in the interest of time for
this presentation I will focus on the cultural and social role of bioarts.
I’m going to present several quotes by participants as ideas to contemplate.
In the interest of time I won’t read them, but feel free to pause the video and read them.
Several participants acknowledged using bioart as an approach to explore and
interrogate questions of identity and how it interacts with structures of power.
Mary Maggic spoke about how their work was influenced by their identity as a non-binary
artist. In this quote they touch on whose bodies have access to hormones, spcietal structures of power,
agency, and body sovereignty. The interest in exploring how structures
of power interact with our bodies through bioart was a common theme across interviews.
They further described how their perspectives have shifted as a result of their identity work
through their art practice. They spoke of democratization and decentralization,
and offering alternative perspectives to the dominant one in science.
Rian Hammond, in speaking about their Open Estrogen Project, echoed the focus on critiquing
or uncovering pervasive systems of power in their work. Our participants’ exploration of
identity and power is in-line with what Nora Vaage describes as art’s ability to create
opportunities for audience members to critically examine and develop their moral frameworks.
The next subtheme is Sparking Dialogue and Cultural Production
Carolyn Angleton explained that the importance of artists engaging
in biology is that they do not just seek to understand the biological processes,
as perhaps a scientist does, but they also seek to understand how scientific
practices fit into the social context when using science to envision the future.
Rian Hammond also spoke about using their work as a bioartist to critique complex cultural and
social histories, which are often dense topics, in a way that would capture the attention of an
audience. They hoped they could use their work to distill this important conversation in a
way that is easily accessible, even to those with perhaps a low level of biotechnological literacy.
Carolyn Angleton saw the role of artists as distinct from researchers and scientists,
which often seeks to find definitive answers to questions. They explained the
role of artists in not necessarily taking a stance for or against a topic or idea,
but in presenting a dialogue and forcing society to confront tough but important questions.
Jen Liu extended this critical eye to bioart itself, stating the importance of interrogating
the reasons for creating bioart. They noted the way that some artists create
for the purpose of shock value, reflecting the privilege they already enjoy in society.
These perspectives show that bioartists saw their practice as distinct, and yet in dialogue with,
biology and design, and as a tool for cultural production and dialogue.
In conclusion, here are the themes we found to be important for the
HCI community to consider in the future of designing living media interfaces.
First, our findings show that bioartists, educators and community organizers who work
at the intersection of art and biology, view living organisms as particularly rich sources of
knowledge and inspiration. Bioart can engage the public in transdisciplinary
and often ethically-oriented conversations about science, technology, art, and social structures.
Our findings show a need for cross-disciplinary collaboration between scientists, designers,
and bioethicists in order to ensure that living organisms are not exploited.
Previously, Kuznetsov et al. found that DIYbio operates across intersections – or
seams – between professional science, hacker subcultures, and the general public.
This idea was echoed by several of our bioartists participants, who emphasized
successful collaborations they had with scientists and scientific organizations.
Our findings show that bioart has been and continues to be a site of exploration
and interrogation of sociopolitical and ethical concerns. They grappled with questions
of colonialism, power, gender, nationality, access, and agency. Our participants shared
similar concerns that have been expressed by the Sustainable HCI and animal-computer
interaction communities. We believe there are further possibilities for conversation between
the HCI and bioart communities about existing “value-tensions” in working with living media,
as well as furthering the value-sensitive approach to HCI research.
Finally, I would like to thank our participants for sharing
their beautiful and thought-provoking insights!