Recombinant Images: Genome Sequencing as a Catalyst for Studio Printmaking

Abstract

This practice-led visual arts research project explores the implications of modern genetic technologies through printmaking and the use of genome sequencing as a catalyst to produce artistic responses. Studio methodologies include the printmaking techniques of laser-cut woodblock, photo screen-printing and photo-polymer intaglio, and the appropriation of imagery from a range of sources including, photographs by Eugene Atget and Eadweard Muybridge, vintage knitting and crochet instruction booklets, and photographs of ancient Roman artefacts. The written exegesis examines correspondences between contemporary forms of image appropriation and technologies used for genetic manipulation. The project is contextualised by surveying contemporary visual artists working with relevant printmaking techniques and addressing similar themes. The biological sciences have been impacted and, in some cases, transformed by advances in genomics, and the science of genomics has itself been transformed by the integration of the biological with new digital visualisation technologies. These recent advances have generated a range of responses from contemporary artists and enlivened debate within Post- and Transhumanist discourses. Artists engaging with these new digital representations are often motivated to reassemble the fractured body, highlighting both the reductionism inherent in the process and the potential misuses of these technologies. The ubiquitous presence of appropriation within contemporary art provides an analogous structure for envisioning the possible applications of new biological technologies. This research examines some important correspondence between the visual image and genetic technologies that are revolutionising many aspects of life in the twenty-first century. These relationships include: the digitisation of images and genetic data; the use of digital technologies to manipulate images and genetic data; utilising DNA synthesis for data/image storage; and the role image recognition technology plays in the development of artificial intelligence. Image theorists Barbara Maria Stafford, Nicolas Bourriaud, and W.J.T. Mitchell inform this research and a range of Post- and Transhumanist theory is surveyed and critiqued.