BioArt: Where Science and Art Could Meat?
by Karin Kloosterman, Jerusalem, Israel on 04. 9.07
A victimless steak. A tiny fur coat made in a Petri tube. Worry dolls made from living muscle. Welcome to the world of BioArt, a movement pioneered by two Israeli artist/scientists Ionat Zurr and Oron Catts. Interested in finding a way to merge science and art, Zurr and Catts found a method to their madness in Perth, Australia where they started up one of the world’s first BioArt labs. There they culture living tissue into sculptures and installation art -- most of which is edible and potentially ethically edible. Says Catts in the weekend Haaretz, “In the lab, we grew lab muscle cells on degradable polymers, and we obtained a steak the size of a 10-shekel coin. After 3 months of growth, the polymers disappeared completely, but the problem was that we couldn’t eat the small steak, because the lab didn’t have a license to sell food.”
Still in its infancy, or according to Catts, “the stone age,” we predict that BioArt (see more here on Wikipedia), is going to be turning more heads in the coming years. Here is a video on Catts and Zurr's work. ::Here is another article on a living robot, developed by another Israeli artist/scientist. ::Haaretz
