Oron Catts
The University of Western Australia, SymbioticA, Faculty Member
- Biology, Art, New Media, Philosophy of Science, Ecology, Biotechnology, and 24 morePerforming Arts, Art Theory, Bioethics, History of Medicine, Performance Art, Cellular Biology, Biomaterials, History of Technology, Art and Science, Tissue Engineering, Stem Cells, Media Art, Artificial Life, Live Art, Ecological Design, New Media Arts, Art Studio, Symbiosis, Art-Sci collaboration, History of Medical Instruments, Contemporary Art, Genomics, Art and Design Education, and Critical Artedit
- Oron Catts is the Director of SymbioticA, The Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts, School of Human Sciences, The ... moreOron Catts is the Director of SymbioticA, The Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts, School of Human Sciences, The University of Western Australia and a Professor at Large in Contestable Design at The Royal College of Arts, London.He is an artist, designer, researcher and curator who is consider a pioneer in the field of biological art. In 2000 he co-founded SymbioticA, at The University of Western Australia. Under Catts’ leadership SymbioticA won the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica in Hybrid Art (2007), the WA Premier Science Award (2008).In 2009 Catts was recognised by Thamesedit
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Research Interests: Psychology and Mesh
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Research Interests: Engineering and MIT
Research Interests: Archaeology and Art
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Tissue engineering has been developed for nonmedical purposes since the mid-1990s. It may have initially been conceived as a biomedical field of research in which applications were developed with the aim of... more
Tissue engineering has been developed for nonmedical purposes since the mid-1990s. It may have initially been conceived as a biomedical field of research in which applications were developed with the aim of growing/constructing/regenerating new organs to improve human health. However, the idea of using tissue engineering techniques as a medium for artistic expression and design emerged as early as 1996, and since then they have evolved into a growing discipline for artists, designers, architect research centers and studios, and start-up companies. The use of tissue engineering in artistic expressions and designed consumer products that exist outside of the biomedical realm raise a number of cultural, philosophical and ethical issues.
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In this chapter we discuss case studies involving proposals for artistic research projects for working with living material and we follow the ways in which the project proposals were engaged with, challenged and dealt with by the ethics... more
In this chapter we discuss case studies involving proposals for artistic research projects for working with living material and we follow the ways in which the project proposals were engaged with, challenged and dealt with by the ethics committees involved. It is our view that artistic research, involving hands-on engagement with the tools of the life sciences, challenge perceptions and create a zone for discussion about our changing relations to life as material for manipulation. There is a tension between artistic research and the ‘cost benefit’ analysis governing the Universities ethics committees, that creates situations which shed light on some of the ethical and philosophical questions contemporary society deals with. There is an increase in the use of living matter as technology, and in treating life as a raw material that can be manipulated and engineered. Human relationship to life is increasingly confronted with our ability to intervene at all levels of the life processes. Just as engineers are entering the field of the life sciences to offer engineering solutions and utilitarian applications, so should artists, who offer non-utilitarian artefacts and gestures, participate in this field to problematise, provoke and subvert those dominant understandings and uses of living material.
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Resumen La biomasa de células y tejidos vivos disociados se cuenta por miles de toneladas. Estos fragmentos no encajan dentro de las clasificaciones biológicas o culturales actuales. La no-ción de cuerpo extendido desarrollada por el... more
Resumen La biomasa de células y tejidos vivos disociados se cuenta por miles de toneladas. Estos fragmentos no encajan dentro de las clasificaciones biológicas o culturales actuales. La no-ción de cuerpo extendido desarrollada por el proyecto TC&A (Tissue ...
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This is an examination of the performative aspects of the Semi-Living (and objects of Partial Live) grown by the Tissue Culture & Art Project (TC&A). The Tissue Culture & Art Project, among a growing number of artists and collectives are... more
This is an examination of the performative aspects of the Semi-Living (and objects of Partial Live) grown by the Tissue Culture & Art Project (TC&A). The Tissue Culture & Art Project, among a growing number of artists and collectives are involved with the presentation of manipulated living systems in an artistic context. In contrast with art that deals with the representation of life through established artistic strategies, TC&A‟s type of engagement with living systems generate an experience which is closer to live/performance art. The phenomenological experience of the audience (as well as the artists) is of major importance for the TC&A. In much of TC&A‟s work the audience are „forced ‟ to actively participate in or be implicated with the alteration of the life cycle of problematised, technologically dependent fragments of life. As part of the TC&A we look at Semi Live Art (where humans and Semi-Living are unequally collaborating) as an attempt to challenge people‟s perceptions of...
artistic, social and scientific implications of the use of biological/medical technologies for artistic purposes.
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The field of biological arts deals with modern biological knowledge, its applications and outcomes as both medium and subject. This is a transgressive and explorative art form that draws its inspiration and discourses from a diverse array... more
The field of biological arts deals with modern biological knowledge, its applications and outcomes as both medium and subject. This is a transgressive and explorative art form that draws its inspiration and discourses from a diverse array of disciplines and modes of art expressions. At this stage it seems to be too early to discuss biological art as a movement per se, but rather it can be analysed as a problematic engagement with a new medium for artistic expression. The motivations and backgrounds of the main artists in this emerging field range from formalistic approaches to total transgression of both the artistic and scientific discourses. Works that involve living components in their presentation can be seen in many cases as time base works. They are durational pieces that can be viewed as an ‘art as documentation’. In his essay Art in the Age of Biopolitics: From Artwork to Art Documentation, the Russian critic Boris Groys (2002) explains this turn towards ‘art as documentatio...
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<p>Neolife are technologically created and fragmented life forms that have been manipulated by humans and cannot survive without artificial life support. This essay focuses our attention on one of the main vessels of neolife - the... more
<p>Neolife are technologically created and fragmented life forms that have been manipulated by humans and cannot survive without artificial life support. This essay focuses our attention on one of the main vessels of neolife - the incubator. In recent years, especially as a result of the human genome project and through the field of synthetic biology, there is a shift to obscure the incubator as a surrogate vessel and render it neutral, thereby obscuring how, throughout history, what life is chosen or forced to be put in an incubator reflects on human wants and desires. Neolife can be seen as the entanglement of life with its surrogate apparatus, echoing interests of human-centric control, which affect and effect the larger milieu. By focusing on the incubator as such, we question the very idea of biocitizenship, focused as it is on human life, on intact, whole bodies, and on the distinction between environment and biology. Furthermore, the incubator has, throughout its history, served to reproduce and recuperate the very ideologies of race and gender upon which normative biocitizenship depends, despite the fact that developments in biotechnology and the design of neolife may offer the illusion of a "new citizenship" that breaks free from hegemonic human social constructions of species, gender, race, and class.</p>
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The paper discusses and critiques the concept of the single engineering paradigm. This concepts allude to a future in which the control of matter and life, and life as matter, will be achieved by applying engineering principles; through... more
The paper discusses and critiques the concept of the single engineering paradigm. This concepts allude to a future in which the control of matter and life, and life as matter, will be achieved by applying engineering principles; through nanotechnology, synthetic biology and, as some suggest, geo-engineering, cognitive engineering and neuro-engineering. We outline some issues in the short history of the field labelled as Synthetic Biology. Furthermore; we examine the way engineers, scientists, designers and artists are positioned and articulating the use of the tools of Synthetic Biology to expose some of the philosophical, ethical and political forces and considerations of today as well as some future scenarios. We suggest that one way to enable the possibilities of alternative frames of thought is to open up the know-how and the access to these technologies to other disciplines, including artistic.
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The instrumentalisation of life is taking novel and radical forms with the developments in the life sciences and its applied technologies. And so are the ways in which we, humans, deal with these lives culturally, philosophically and... more
The instrumentalisation of life is taking novel and radical forms with the developments in the life sciences and its applied technologies. And so are the ways in which we, humans, deal with these lives culturally, philosophically and ethically. Mediation and fragmentation are used to ‘distance’ and abstract life to the extent that it becomes a ‘thing’ or a ‘matter’ that can ‘be shaped and altered’ and ‘commoditified’ for human centred purposes.
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In an interview, artists Laura Cinti, Oron Catss, and Marta de Menezes express their views in incorporating biotechnology on their art projects. In the transgenic artwork of Cinti, she combined the fusion of human genetic material into... more
In an interview, artists Laura Cinti, Oron Catss, and Marta de Menezes express their views in incorporating biotechnology on their art projects. In the transgenic artwork of Cinti, she combined the fusion of human genetic material into the cactus genome to create a cactus that ...
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Panelists: Stelarc, Mike Bianco, Oron Catts. As we are in the midst of the biotechnological turn, bodies of all types are being transformed into canvas for artistic expressions. This panel will explore a range of artistic practices that... more
Panelists: Stelarc, Mike Bianco, Oron Catts.
As we are in the midst of the biotechnological turn, bodies of all types are being transformed into canvas for artistic expressions. This panel will explore a range of artistic practices that both invade and disturb biological bodies through acts of manipulation that constitute a kind of invasive aesthetics. In this panel, broader questions of functionality, excess, and sustainability will be explored through artworks which are intended to engage the full spectrum of aesthetics which go beyond what can be seen, but also to what can both be felt and eaten. From the Alternate Anatomies of Stelarc, through the Disembodied Cuisine of the Tissue Culture & Art Project, to the Human Honey Bee of Mike Bianco, this panel of artists will explore the notion of invasive aesthetics and its focus on the distribution of life and it’s re-integration into new and non-traditional spaces for both art-making and exhibition.
As we are in the midst of the biotechnological turn, bodies of all types are being transformed into canvas for artistic expressions. This panel will explore a range of artistic practices that both invade and disturb biological bodies through acts of manipulation that constitute a kind of invasive aesthetics. In this panel, broader questions of functionality, excess, and sustainability will be explored through artworks which are intended to engage the full spectrum of aesthetics which go beyond what can be seen, but also to what can both be felt and eaten. From the Alternate Anatomies of Stelarc, through the Disembodied Cuisine of the Tissue Culture & Art Project, to the Human Honey Bee of Mike Bianco, this panel of artists will explore the notion of invasive aesthetics and its focus on the distribution of life and it’s re-integration into new and non-traditional spaces for both art-making and exhibition.
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Download file at: www.antennae.org.uk It's a whole new 'Antennae'! After twelve years, we've given 'Antennae' a good makeover. Check out our new issue #47 titled 'Experiment', the first of two installments (the second, out this summer... more
Download file at: www.antennae.org.uk
It's a whole new 'Antennae'! After twelve years, we've given 'Antennae' a good makeover. Check out our new issue #47 titled 'Experiment', the first of two installments (the second, out this summer titled 'Interface') exploring the intricacies and rewards involved in "art and science" collaborations. This issue includes exclusive interviews with artists and scholars whose work has impacted the way we think about disciplinary boundaries, ethics, and aesthetics in modern and contemporary art. From the collaborative network-experiments of Crochet Coral Reef, and Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr's ability to challenge our conception of the living, to mathematics, color perception, storytelling, outer space, and vaccination this certainly is one of our richest issues. And, make sure to check our new flip-book format at the bottom of our home page.
Download free here: www.antennae.org.uk
A team of scholars and artists has also helped us select some of the most exciting representatives of this ever-growing movement. We are thankful to Andrew Yang (Associate Professor of Liberal Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago), Daniela Silvestrin (Curatorial Assistant at Leuphana Universität Lüneburg), Julie Marie Lemon (Program Director & Curator of the University-wide Arts, Science + Culture Initiative,at the University of Chicago), Julia Buntaine Hoel (Conceptual Artist and Director of SciArt Magazine), Ken Rinaldo (artist and professor of robotics at The Ohio State University), and Piero Scaruffi (research on cognitive science and art) for their help and advice. And as always, we would like to thank everyone involved in the making of this issue.
With contributions from: Jenny Rock and Sierra Adler, Roberta Buiani, Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr, Jim Supanick, Melissa Dubbin & Aaron S. Davidson, Helen J. Bullard, Liz Flyntz & Byron Rich with Marnie Benney, Carolyn Angleton, Pei-Ying Lin, Jonathon Keats, Eugenia Cheng, Margaret Wertheim, Alex May, Andy Gracie, Daniela de Paulis, Bettina Forget and Gemma Anderson
It's a whole new 'Antennae'! After twelve years, we've given 'Antennae' a good makeover. Check out our new issue #47 titled 'Experiment', the first of two installments (the second, out this summer titled 'Interface') exploring the intricacies and rewards involved in "art and science" collaborations. This issue includes exclusive interviews with artists and scholars whose work has impacted the way we think about disciplinary boundaries, ethics, and aesthetics in modern and contemporary art. From the collaborative network-experiments of Crochet Coral Reef, and Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr's ability to challenge our conception of the living, to mathematics, color perception, storytelling, outer space, and vaccination this certainly is one of our richest issues. And, make sure to check our new flip-book format at the bottom of our home page.
Download free here: www.antennae.org.uk
A team of scholars and artists has also helped us select some of the most exciting representatives of this ever-growing movement. We are thankful to Andrew Yang (Associate Professor of Liberal Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago), Daniela Silvestrin (Curatorial Assistant at Leuphana Universität Lüneburg), Julie Marie Lemon (Program Director & Curator of the University-wide Arts, Science + Culture Initiative,at the University of Chicago), Julia Buntaine Hoel (Conceptual Artist and Director of SciArt Magazine), Ken Rinaldo (artist and professor of robotics at The Ohio State University), and Piero Scaruffi (research on cognitive science and art) for their help and advice. And as always, we would like to thank everyone involved in the making of this issue.
With contributions from: Jenny Rock and Sierra Adler, Roberta Buiani, Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr, Jim Supanick, Melissa Dubbin & Aaron S. Davidson, Helen J. Bullard, Liz Flyntz & Byron Rich with Marnie Benney, Carolyn Angleton, Pei-Ying Lin, Jonathon Keats, Eugenia Cheng, Margaret Wertheim, Alex May, Andy Gracie, Daniela de Paulis, Bettina Forget and Gemma Anderson