Event 1: Kathy High -Manipulating Art and Living Systems

In Kathy High's lecture on manipulating art and living systems, she presented us with some every interesting projects that combined biotechnology and art. She started with photography of speculative design. She showed us artists that connected humans and animals together. For example, the photograph "Life Support" which showed a genetically altered sheep with the same genetics as the human patient being used as a dialysis machine. The sheep filters the blood through its kidneys and then is pumped back into the human. This image was actually very disturbing to me, and I was distraught when thinking that this was actually possible. I don't think it is right to use an animal that way when we have machines and more sanitary ways of helping people with kidney failure. Later in the speculative design portion of the lecture, she showed us Pinar Yoldas' work called plastic sea. She created sculptures in the water that represent a new ecosystem that developed from all the plastic in the ocean. Our oceans are filled with garbage and plastic that people do not recycle and we hear stories everyday about how dolphins get stuck in plastic soda rings or birds covered in oil. I believe that Yoldas’ work has a great message to show the world and an interesting take on the trash problem. Do we want animals to adapt to the plastic and create a whole new species based on chemicals? Or do we want to prevent animals dying through natural selection because they can’t adapt to the plastic?

Kathy also showed us some of the projects she is working on. One of her biggest projects is her work with rats and trying to understand rat laughter. Rats register a sound that goes beyond our hearing capacity. She observed that rats chirp almost like giggling when tickled and that the rats seem to enjoy being tickled. She is working with a specialized recording device to document these ultrasonic sounds of laughter to create a rat laughter concert. She would like to loop and compose the recording together for the rats.

Her lecture tied into the week 6 BioArt lecture. Kathy High was actually mentioned in one of the

lectures for her empathy rat piece with hybrid rats and how she took care of them until the rats became healthy again. This piece was used as a message towards the medical community and how they treat animals in scientific experiments. I believe that most of the artists that work with life as a medium are trying to send a message about our sustainability problems, mistreatment of animals, or the different ways animals can be useful to us. I really enjoyed Kathy High’s lecture all together and learned some pretty interesting things about bio-art.