Tissues, Cultures, Art

Artists-researchers and Curators, Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr formed the Tissue Culture & Art Project in 1996 and SymbioticA in 2000.  Catts, the Co-Founder and Director of SymbioticA: the Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts was a Professor at Large in Contestable Design at the Royal College for the Arts UK.  Zurr is the Chair of the Fine Arts Discipline at the University of Western Australia. Both were Visiting professors at Biofilia, Aalto University, Finland; The Centre of Arts and Art History at Stanford University and Research Fellows at The Tissue Engineering & Organ Fabrication Laboratory, Harvard Medical School.They are considered pioneers in the field of Biological Arts and their work was exhibited at MoMA NY, Pompidou Centre, Mori Art Museum, Ars Electronica and the National Art Museum of China.

• Introduction.- 1. The Semi-living.- 2. Information, Genohype and DNA Chauvinism.- 3. Who Cares? Outsourcing Labour to Incubators.- 4. The Reverse Ontology of Sentience: The Technologically Mediated Victimless Utopia 5. Taxonomies, Categorizations and Queer Life.- 6. Concluding Notes: Secular Vitalism.