Oron Catts & Ionat Zurr

Which was ‘The Tissue Culture & Art Project’ that Oron Catts & Ionat Zurr, Hosted in SymbioticA -- The Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts, School of Anatomy, Physiology and Human Biodegradable polymer connective and bone cells. Mori Art Museum (part of the Art & Medicine Exhibition in 2010. This piece raised many issues about life and death and pushed many ethical boundaries in not only art but also science.

When approaching the subject of this piece it raises many questions for the viewer, on how the lighting may have effected the scientific sculpture? Onlookers may find themselves asking is this a piece of sculpture? or would it be conceptual art? It defiantly is modern with the technology behind it and the science of making a living cell. But maybe the artwork itself is performance based as the jumper, which is referring to leather is made in a cell and when touched, it dies. So the public interacting with it look, inspecting, then touching it becomes a performance of what science and art can do together. This is the Art of Science.

The display of the piece is very dynamic and complex for a non- scientific person. There are things we might recall from school and have seen in made scientific movies. The red lighting behind the piece gives the test tubes a glow and almost unease to the piece. It is possibly intended to make the viewer unnerved. Recalling the visual imagery of the book Fracinstein (REF} A book that later created a cult following of film noir genre and countless scary Frankinstin movies. The work displays living tissue, held captive within the middle test tube. There the metallic surface, which the work sits on, gives the clinical impression of an experimental cage possibly one as used by scientific institutions that experiment on live animals.