Carnal Light

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1 Jacques Derrida, ‘Force and Signification’ in Writing and Difference (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1980), p.27. 2 Vivienne Baille Gerritsen, ‘The greenest of us all?’, Protein Spotlight (June 2001). < http://web.expasy.org/spotlight/pdf/sptlt011.pdf> [15/09/2012]. 3 Bijal P. Trivedi, ‘Introducing ANDi: The first genetically modified monkey,’ Genome News Network < http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/01_01/ANDi.shtml> [15/09/2012]. 4 David Whitehouse, ‘GM fish glows in the bowl,’ < http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3026104.stm> [15/09/2012]. 5 Pimprapar Wongsrikeao, Dyana Saenz, Tommy Rinkoski, Takeshige Otoi & Eric Poeschla, ‘Antiviral restriction factor transgenesis in the domestic cat,’ < http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v8/n10/full/nmeth.1703.html> [15/09/2012]. 6 Hsiao FS, Lian WS, Lin SP, et al. ‘Toward an ideal animal model to trace donor cell fates after stem cell therapy: production of stably labeled multipotent mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow of transgenic pigs harboring enhanced green fluorescence protein gene’ < http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21705633> [15/09/2012]. 7 GFP's visual impact makes it a popular topic in interdisciplinary art and science education, with many students initially working with bacteria. For example, see Jennifer Willet's ‘Bioart: Contemporary Art and the Life Sciences’ < http://bioartwindsor.blogspot.com/2012/02/part-1-gfp-lab.html> [15/09/2012], William Ward's ‘Experiments with GFP – The Art and the Science’ < http://aesop.rutgers.edu/ ∼ dbm/11115433SpecialTopicsBiochem.html> [15/09/2012] and SymbioticA's ‘BioTech Art Workshop’ workshop program, which Lindsay Kelley was fortunate enough to participate in at University of California Irvine < http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/activities/workshops/SymbioticA_BioTech_art_workshop> [15/09/2012]. 8 George Gessert, Green Light: Toward an Art of Evolution (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2010). 9 An early version of this paper was given as a talk on the panel ‘Tranimals’ at ‘Zoontotechnics: Animality/Technicity,’ 14 May 2010. 10 An connection in which elements ‘form an ensemble, a physical or metaphysical whole, the existence or idea of one being included in the existence or idea of another’. Paul Ricoeur, Rule of Metaphor: The Creation of Meaning in Language (New York: Routledge, 2003) p.56. 11 ‘Metaplasm means a change in a word, for example by adding, omitting or transposing its letters, syllables or sounds… There is a biological taste to “metaplasm”… Flesh and signifier, bodies and words, stories and worlds: these are joined in naturecultures. Metaplasm can signify a mistake, a stumbling, a troping that makes a fleshly difference’. Donna Haraway, The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People and Significant Otherness (Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2003) pp.20–21. 12 As a continuation of the GFP Bunny project, Kac transmitted ‘lagoglyphs’ into outer space. The Lagoglyphs are a rabbitographic form of language evoking dissection organs and bodily interiors; these compositions create ‘a visual language that alludes to meaning but resists interpretation’. The transmission was accomplished through satellite broadcasting equipment and a parabolic dish antenna. This art action translates Alba into frequency, power, bandwidth and polarity. Art, here, is vibrational, rhythmic. It is in this way that we want to suggest that Alba is resonant, dissonant and improvisational. < http://www.ekac.org/gfpbunny.html> [15/09/2012]. 13 Dorion Sagan, ‘Introduction: Umwelt after Uexküll’ in Jakob von Uexküll, A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans: with A Theory of Meaning (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010) p.1. 14 See Nicole Shukin, Animal Capital: Rendering Life in Biopolitical Times (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009). 15 Alphonso Lingis, Phenomenological Explanations (Dordrect: Martinus Nijhoff, 1986) p.56. 16 Alphonso Lingis, Phenomenological Explanations, p.67. 17 ‘Art enables matter to become expressive, to not just satisfy but also to intensify – to resonate and become more than itself. […]Art is the regulation and organization of its materials […] according to self-imposed constraints, the creation of forms through which these materials come to generate and intensify sensation and this directly impact living bodies organs, nervous systems’. Elizabeth Grosz, Chaos, Territory, Art: Deleuze and the Framing of the Earth (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008) p.4. 18 Elizabeth Grosz, Chaos, Territory, Art: Deleuze and the Framing of the Earth (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008) p.23. 19 Eva Hayward, ‘FingeryEyes: Impressions of Cup Corals’ Cultural Anthropology 25.4 (2010) pp.577–599. 20 The oldest and best example of this institutionally sanctioned art lab may be found at the University of Western Australia. See ‘SymbioticA,’ < http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/> [15/09/2012]. 21 Kristen Philipkoski, ‘RIP: Alba, the Glowing Bunny,’ WIRED < http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2002/08/54399> [15/09/2012]. 22 See Kathy High on rats as laboratory animals and as pets: Kathy High, Embracing Animal (2004), < http://www.embracinganimal.com/> [15/09/2012]. 23 Eduardo Kac, Telepresence and Bio Art: Networking Humans, Rabbits and Robots (Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press, 2005) p.266. 24 Suzanne Anker, The Molecular Gaze: Art in the Genetic Age (Cold Spring Harbor: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2003) p.108. 25 Rabbits prefer not to swim. One of the better known swimming rabbit news stories – US President Jimmy Carter's 1979 ‘rabbit attack’ while fishing – involved a rabbit swimming as a last resort, escaping from hunting dogs. Carter's press secretary described the rabbit as ‘a large, wet animal, making strange hissing noises and gnashing its teeth, […] intent upon climbing into the Presidential boat’. Jody Powell, The Other Side of the Story (New York: Morrow, 1984) p.105. 26 Renova details further uses for their GFP rabbits: ‘The specific relevant or derived GFP rabbit cell types can be used for gene therapy in animal models. GFP transgenic rabbits can also be used for deriving embryonic stem cells (from the early embryos), induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells and further differentiation into many specific cell types’. ‘Renova Life Inc’. < http://www.renovalife.com/gfp_rabbits.php> [15/09/2012]. 27 Relatedly, the organization New Life Animal Sanctuary is ‘exclusively devoted to the rescue and rehabilitation of animals saved from laboratories’ (including several large white albino bunnies like Alba); founder Gina Lynn was arrested blocking the delivery of rabbits to an undergraduate classroom at UC Santa Barbara before turning to sanctuary and adoption work. < http://www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk/resources/?section = breeds.html> [15/09/2012]. 28 Eduardo Kac, GFP Bunny, notes 17 and 18. < http://www.ekac.org/gfpbunny.html#gfpbunnyanchor> [15/09/2012]. 29 Alba's birth resulted from an established strategy for creating GFP rabbits: ‘direct microinjection of DNA into the pronucleus of a rabbit zygote’. Eduardo Kac, Telepresence, p.264 30 A recent episode of the BBC television series Sherlock features a lab technician mother who brings a GFP bunny home as a pet for her daughter. 31 Critical Art Ensemble, ‘Betty Crocker 3000 Presents Food for a Hungry World’ Molecular Invasion (New York: Autonomedia, 2002), pp.135–136. 32 Bijal P. Trivedi, ‘Introducing ANDi: The first genetically modified monkey,’ 33 Donna Haraway, When Species Meet (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2008) p.17. 34 Robert Foley, ‘Are we the only animals to cook our food?’ < http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/latest-questions/question/2169/> [21/09/2012]. 35 Julie Ann Smith, ‘Beyond Dominance and Affection: Living with Rabbits in Post-Humanist Households,’ Society & Animals, 11.2 (2003), p.187. 36 Kim Severson, ‘Don't Tell the Kids’ < http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res = 9905E1D8103AF930A35750C0A9669D8B63&pagewanted = all> [15/09/2012]. 37 Stories were gathered from an informal poll on Facebook. 38 Julie Ann Smith, ‘Beyond Dominance and Affection’, pp.187–188. 39 Donna Haraway, When Species Meet (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2008), p.19. 40 Jonathan M. Gitlin, ‘Is this sausage supposed to be green?’. < http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2006/01/2477.ars> [15/09/2012]. 41 Cary Wolfe, ‘From Dead Meat to Glow in the Dark Bunnies: Seeing “the Animal Question” in Contemporary Art’, parallax, 12.1 (2006), p.107. 42 ‘Renova Life, Inc’ < http://www.renovalife.com/gfp_rabbits.php> [15/09/2012]. 43 Erik Stokstad, ‘Engineered fish: Friend or foe of the environment?’, Science (September 2002), p.1797. 44 Francis Bartkowski, Kissing Cousins: A New Kinship Bestiary (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008) p.157.