Ile Seguin Urban Jungle Museum: MARTA DE MENEZES

BioArt City /////// PROGRAM

BioArt is an emerging art practice in which the medium is living matter and th "works of art" are produced in laboratories and/or artists and designers studios. The tool is biotechnology, which includes such tecnologies as genetic engineering and cloning.

The materials used by Bioartists are cells, DNA molecules and living tissue. Tampering with living forms and practicing in the life sciences brings about ethical, social and aestetic enquiry. BioArt is an early 21st century practice for artists in bringing even closer the "arts and sciences".

Ile Seguin, near Paris hosted Renault cars factory. It would become now a territory dedicated to Arts and Science.

Brief requires construction of a Art dedicated art center with studios, laboratories and exhibition spaces. cafes, restaurants, and galleries.

We decides to explore the way of a " BioArchitecture" mixing Art and science, a biophilic design and urbanism.

That's why we placed art center inside a new kind of zoo we called "The wide wild plain", in which humans are the only mamifers to be confined and where animals are free.

2007-10-22

MARTA DE MENEZES

In NATURE? I created live butterflies with wing patterns never seen before in nature. I achieved this by interfering with the normal developmental mechanisms of the butterflies. The butterflies are simultaneously natural (their wings are made of normal live cells, without artificial pigments or scars) but designed by an artist. This work was performed during a residency in Paul Brakefield’s laboratory at the University of Leiden, in The Netherlands. The work was exhibited for the first time in Ars Electronica 2000, Linz, Austria. To my knowledge it was the first time live animals (i.e. not bacteria or plants) modified for artistic purposes were exhibited in an art venue.

In NATURE? I have only modified the pattern of one wing of Bicyclus and Heliconius butterflies. As a consequence, all these butterflies have simultaneously one wing with the natural design and another one with my design. Through this asymmetry, I have tried to emphasise the similarities and differences between the unmanipulated and manipulated, between the natural and the novel natural.

I have been trying to express concepts in the butterfly wings that deal with our perception of shapes. By adding, changing or deleting eyespots and colour patches it is possible for our imagination to identify shapes and rhythms familiar to our senses. Another approach includes highlighting particular aspects of the natural wing – for example, the removal of the outer rings of an eyespot to simply show the white centre of it. I do not have the intention of enhancing in any way nature’s design. Nor do I intend to make something already beautiful even more beautiful. I simply aim to explore the possibilities and constraints of the biological system, creating (within what is possible) different patterns that are not the result of an evolutionary process.

It has also been my intention to create unique butterflies. The changes are not at the genetic level, and the germline is left untouched. As a consequence, the induced modifications are not transmitted to the offspring. Each modified butterfly is different from any other. The new patterns are something never seen in nature before, and quickly disappear from nature not to be seen again. This form of art has a life span – the life span of a butterfly. It is a form of art that literally lives and dies. It is simultaneously art and life. Art and Biology.