DANMite,colloquium /Adam Zaretsky
The Workhorse Zoo Bioethics Quiz
The Workhorse Zoo was a display of nine of the most studied industrial organisms of Modern Molecular Biology living together in a ‘glass house.’
The Organisms:
Bacteria - E. coli
Yeast - C. cerevisiae
Plants - A. Thaliana and Fresh Wheat
Worms - C. elegans
Flies - D. melanogaster
Fish - D. rerio
Frogs - X. laevis
Mice - M. musculus
Humans - H. sapiens
Our pride and willingness to discuss important issues surrounding nature/culture issues and human/other relations implies a public invitation to intelligent debate. Conceptual novelties are expressed in the living arts, with or without the meddling of artists, scientists or ethicists. Life is alive and mutating, officially and unofficially. It is only within the situational ethics of pluralist integrities that an effective debate has a chance of flourishing. Life is not composed of pat answers and shallow assumptions. This is why this presentation includes many more questions than answers.
Bio
Adam Zaretsky is a teacher and practitioner of VivoArts: Art and Biology Studio. Art and Biology is an emerging and politically charged techno-artistic field. Immersion in the world of scientific study exposes artists to the ‘other’ culture and refines their process and commentary. Often hidden from ideas of free play and improvised action, scientists can glean healthy novelty and even inspiration through close contact with the less regal but often more innovative clan. Included in his Biological Art Practices are such non-laboratory based movements as Live Art, EcoArt, Food Art and Animal Interrelation Art. An active student of Developmental Biology and Transgenic Theory and Practice, Adam believes GMOs are a transnational and diasporic issue for both humans and the rest of the lifeworld. Human desire is reshaping evolution for contentious ends. Designer babies, goat milk pharmacies, racialised germ warfare… the coming century will prove to be another test of world resiliency in the face of the least mature organismic organization: mediated pop culture.