Amid the rapid developments in biotechnology, such as genetic modification and stem cell research, important ethical questions arise. What happens if we tinker with human genes? And what if we modify the human germline? Where does this lead? “The answers are often missing,” says Lotte Pet (34), who completed her PhD in humanities with honors at Leiden University this month. “This is because we have a limited idea of what biological life entails. Biological life is complex and unpredictable. Nevertheless, we must make ethical decisions about what research into biological life we do and do not want to conduct.”
Pet explored bioethical dilemmas using art. “The complexity of biological life exceeds our understanding and requires a new ethical approach,” she explains. “I want to discover how bioart can contribute to an ethical attitude towards this elusive life.”
Manipulation with jellyfish genes
“A well-known example of bio art is the fluorescent rabbit Alba, by the bio artist Eduardo Kac.” The rabbit had been genetically modified with jellyfish genes. “This caused Alba to glow green under UV light.”
Bio artists use technology to create art using biological processes and organisms. The researcher is convinced that art stimulates a different way of thinking. “Art is a material form of research, as opposed to purely theoretical approaches, such as in books. You can relate your body to a work of art. You can walk around it. Or literally participate in it, such as interactive works of art.”
“Artistic research deals with aesthetics, irony, humor and different emotions,” she continues. “While these aspects are not necessarily part of scientific research.” Maybe you recognize it, says Pet, “standing in front of a work of art and wondering: what is this actually about? What is happening here?” Some people consider this a disadvantage of art, but Pet believes that this state of confusion is what makes art powerful. “Art can provoke immediate reactions or reveal inflected emotions.”
An artistic science
It is no coincidence that Pet combines science, art and ethics. She has been an artistic science teacher from an early age. She did the nature & health profile in high school, but chose an arts education over science. “I wanted to do autonomous research. And in a creative way,” she says. However, her curiosity about science did not disappear. “Early on during my art education I developed the question: what can art teach us that science cannot?”
Inspired by that question, after her bachelor’s degree in visual arts, Pet did a bachelor’s degree in art history, resulting in a master’s degree in art history arts & culture. “The comparison between artistic and scientific research has always remained an intriguing issue for me.”
Five years ago she started her PhD research into bioart. Pet studied four art projects focused on biological life, biotechnology and biomedical research.
One of them is the art project In Posse by Charlotte Jarvis, a British visual artist. Jarvis makes sperm from ‘female’ cells. Scientists at Leiden University Medical Center developed pluripotent stem cells from Jarvis’ own cells to create ‘female’ sperm cells. “Jarvis then made semen from this by mixing it with donated blood from women in a ritual setting.”
This project is not just art. Making ‘female’ sperm cells offers potential applications for women who have difficulty with fertility or for lesbian couples who want to have a biological child together. According to Pet, creating female sperm has many more implications. “It also helps to better understand and recognize the differences and complexities between biological sex and gender. As a spectator you relate to the ‘female’ sperm. What is that actually? Do I feel personally involved in that as a spectator? This raises all kinds of personal ideas. And also opens up space for other genders, not entirely male or female.” Bio art encourages people to think more consciously, according to Pet.
A non-viable werewolf
Another artwork that the PhD candidate discusses in her dissertation focuses on human-dog hybrids (werewolves). “The Slovenian artist Maya Smrekar makes controversial bio art about hybridity between animal species.” In one of Smrekar’s projects, she merged her own egg with her dog’s fat cell. This then multiplied until just before it became a ‘blastocyst’ (a clump of cells of about a hundred cells that forms just after fertilization has taken place). This hybrid work of art will not be viable. “But this could potentially be possible. It is essentially already a form of life,” says Pet.
Both projects raise ethical questions. “Bio art can contribute to a more open view of what biological life entails. It helps us relate to an accumulation of ever-changing meanings that we assign to life. I think it is good if, when making such ethical decisions, we adopt an open attitude towards the possibilities that we cannot yet foresee. Art offers more room for a subjective approach compared to scientific or medical research.”