Pigeon Anatomy
Synth-ethic: Art and Synthetic Biology Exhibition, Vienna, Austria was an exhibition as part of BIO:FICTION, a science, and and film festival, Vienna. One of the artists; Tuur Van Baalen showed ‘Pigeon d’Or;
“By modifying the metabolism of bacteria naturally occurring in the gut of pigeons, synthetic biology allows to add new functionality to animals commonly seen as vermin and “flying rats,” turning them into tools for urban disinfection. In collaboration with James Chappell, the artist has designed a special bacteria that, when fed to pigeons, turns their faeces into a biological window soap.”
If you think that’s weird, check out Oron Catts & Ionat Zurr’s Semi-living Worry Dolls;
“The Semi-Living Worry Dolls are tissue-engineered sculptures cultured live under micro-gravitational conditions in an “artificial womb” – a bioreactor that acts as a surrogate body. They are grown from McCoy cells over hand-crafted degradable polymers and stitched together with surgical sutures. The polymers degrade as the tissue grows and the Worry Dolls become “partially alive.” They represent modern versions of the legendary Guatemalan worry dolls: at bedtime children are told to take one doll for each worry and to share their worry with that doll – overnight, the dolls will solve their problems.”
These are just two of many, check the rest out here.
