Digging Up The Corps Of Bioteknica - Tobias C. Van Veen

Gallery Exclusive New Work by Paul Freeman tobias c van Veen on Montreal Duo Bioteknica Clint Wilson Mechanical Barley The Autobiographical Musings of RM Vaughan Mitchell akiyama Vermin and Weeds

PM41389033

Issue 4

2007

$6.95

ISSN 1718-5017

Bioteknica tell me that there are a few pre-

The virus and parasite have been well exploited by strategies of art, politics, and philosophy. Cancer—as the excess growth of the self

cautions when playing around with cancer—no playing with your own teratomas, for example—and you’ve got to have a lab,

becomes murderously other—heralds a different kind of process in corporeal and aesthetic registers. Bioteknica’s artistic projects with teratoma cell lines—the cancerous cells that grow into tumours—permeate the boundaries of art and science. It is a boundary marked legally as well as ethically, and Bioteknica’s endeavours in the interzone

to keep the cancer from contaminating stuff,

have already been awarded the label of the “bioarts”—if not at the risk

but also to keep it moist and alive and grow-

still before a U.S. Grand Jury for their pioneering attempt to marry the

of skirting “bioterrorism.” Steve Kurtz and Critical Art Ensemble are arts and sciences in the use of tactical media art projects. CAE have

ing. Everything gives us cancer—we all know

been under investigation since 2004 for obtaining harmless bacteria from a cooperative scientist for an artistic project (allegedly violating

that. Cancer is everywhere and already inside the body, at this very moment, held in check. What is cancer? Only cancerous cells and stem cells, the latter nurtured as tissue cul-

the material transfer agreement of the ATCC2 that requires all scientific materials to remain inside the approved, destination lab—even if harmless—which raises the question: who owns scientific practice?) While CAE sought to develop applied tools, such as a spray kit that would identify GMO3 vegetables and fruits for consumers, Bioteknica have undertaken an artistic practice that questions and participates in every level of the scientific process (and industry) involved with

tures in Petri dishes, have the ability to divide

technologically mediated organisms, from teratoma cells and general

indefinitely. As Hannah Landecker writes, this

biotech sciences. Every aspect comes into play in the aesthetic inter-

cell line research to the corporate and military industries at work in the rogation of the premises of biotech. Bioteknica is the codename for

apparent immortality, the dream of pure tran-

a transparently aesthetic inquiry conducted from within: Bioteknica strictly abides by the procedures of regulation—ethical, legal, health,

scendence throughout history—to escape death itself!—is ironically “one of the traits

D I GG I N G U P TH E COR P S O F B I OT E K N I CA

that [makes] cancer a menacing and mortal

By tobias c van Veen

safety and scientific—required to gain access to laboratories and materials. But Bioteknica never pretends to be otherwise than what it is—an aesthetic intervention. Bioteknica is no covert operation but a deliberate, technical, and precise incision into the heart of biotech. Bioteknica, consisting of Montréal artists Shawn Bailey and Jennifer

disease of the body.” 1 That which lives for-

Willet, began their project in 2000, by modeling a website [bioteknica.

ever, at least theoretically and in a perverse

es the familiar strategies of tactical media: adopting the advertising

org] on the biotech sector. At the entry level, Bioteknica encompasstactics of an existing corporate sector toward deviant or subversive

manner, kills us.

Shawn Bailey and Jennifer Willet, BIOTEKNICA LiveLifeLab Documentation. FOFA Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. 2007.

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ends. A subsequent and early exhibition was successful to the point 35

wherein potential investors became interested in this apparently new

in really mulling it… We are interested in analyzing the situation

(scientific) practices are swept up in an idealism guided more often

biotech company. But Bioteknica did not want to pursue the path of

as it goes on around us.

than not by unconscious aesthetic assumptions that defer the ques-

misleading investors (or taking the money and running, as they put it



tion of responsibility. And as Freud taught us, the unconscious is more

—Jennifer Willet

to me a few years ago). Rather, they are taken by researching all the

What kind of space is a laboratory? What goes on in there? What

aspects of biotech, and their representational work—a corporate web-

goes on when artists get in there? Bioteknica’s practice of late has

often than not governed by anal drives.

site with animated yet fake organ “growths,” mission statements, and

consisted of learning the basic protocols of growing cell lines in the

self-produced photographs of scientific apparatus—was but a first

lab, documenting each step, from photography to video, and then

Science is a learning and at times anal process. For Bioteknica, sci-

step to getting into the laboratory. According to Jennifer Willet:

Getting a Piece of (Your) Ass.

devising, at each level, ways in which to inject aesthetic and political

ence is the object of their art and also its stuff. No one technology—

A lot of what we do is an ongoing performance: Shawn negoti-

questions. For example, they have latched onto the unruly and wild

unlike the frame and the grain of the photograph for photography, or

ating with Fisher Scientific to get an invoice and ordering sec-

P-19 mouse teratoma, which, when the cells reach confluence—the

the video channel and apparatus for video art—informs their practice.

tion—that’s part of the thing. ‘Hi, I’m an artist; I’d like to order,

state at which the cells fills up one layer along the bottom of a Petri

For Shawn and Jennifer, theirs is content-driven, not technology-driv-

uhh, a fume hood. Or sterile hood. What steps do I have to do to

dish—they start sticking together irregularly, exhibiting what is called

en, art. Even to pinpoint a particular medium runs into difficulty. As

do that?’ But I do think that, for Shawn and I, the lab that we built

three-dimensional clumping. In short, for Bioteknica, orderly cells are

Shawn says,

at ISEA with Oron Catts was as engaged in aesthetic decisions

boring; they grow flat and stop growing when they reach confluence.

I’m not sure what medium we’re working within. The media is un-

as engaged in healthy and safety standards, dut dut dut dut dah.

P-19s are self-destructive: the cells in the centre of the clump don’t

defined. The media term the art historians are using right now is

It had to function. In fact we didn’t want to work in the realm of

receive growth solution—as there is no vascular system, unlike the

“bioart,” with which we’re uncomfortable with. We don’t want to

representation. Maybe that’s the difference. But every element in

body—and so the inner cells die off. Only one-third to one-half of the

be considered bio-artists, though we have been grouped in with

there, every , every texture, every shape, every size, those deci-

cells survive. Thus, P-19s are “ugly cells” for scientists; scientists like

a number of other diverse practices that involve living systems

sions were come to based upon artistic perceptions.

flat, pretty, geometric cells. P-19s are “irregular and irrational.” Obser-

in some way as opposed to merely representing living systems.

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Bioteknica is a kind of activist infiltration in open source aesthetics.

vation one (concerning the geometricism of science): the orderliness

That seems to be the sort of cut-off point. In order for living sys-

As Jennifer says, “Shawn and I are activists… And I think that we need

of patterning produces reproducible results. But this isn’t really “na-

tems to be involved there has to be—and you know, it’s a form of

a chorus of people working in a variety of different ways, and Shawn

ture” then, is it? It’s a politics of the orderly.

realism, it actually goes back to that argument about realism in

and I are best when working in institutional channels. And that prob-

Or consider drawing cells under a microscope. Apparently Shawn

art practices—there has to be some documentation of this, which

ably brings us to the type of practice that we have, where we follow

draws nice cells—which is to say, he doesn’t draw the cell at all, which

then comes to a kind of scientific, and empirical, and objectivist,

the rules and we follow the protocols.” 6 By operating within the lines

to the untrained eye looks like a globular mess with indistinct shad-

logical positivist perspective on verifiability of what your claims

but, one could say, with radical outlines, Bioteknica have managed

ings and all kinds of little bits floating around. Shawn relates being in

are… In this sense, the microscope is absolutely essential to our

to assume decision-making capacities within the university environ-

a room full of artists told to “draw only what you see” and then having

work… But the technology is not the subject.

ment concerning the approval of aesthetico-scientific projects. And

the instructors freak out as the artists rendered the visible chaos of the

Learning science as an aesthetic inquiry is a process of training,

of course they also engage in the very production of science—sci-

cell. “No! No!” the scientists would scream upon seeing the drawings.

which—although at every level there are opportunities for produc-

ence as myth, space, knowledge, and practice. Once in the laboratory,

So Shawn asked what it is he was supposed to see, and then drew

tion of aesthetic objects—is directed toward a level of proficiency in

notably at Australia’s SymbioticA—an “art and science collaborative

a purely schematic cell: basically, a circle within a circle. Observation

the lab which would allow the creation of an art that is generative of

research library” established in part by artist Oron Catts with the Uni-

two: what you see is not what is supposed to be seen.

and interrogative toward life itself. Bioteknica aim to become fully-

versity of Western Australia—Bioteknica are able to begin, in a sense.

Microscopy—the art of taking pictures through a microscope—has

proficient practitioners of the sciences without becoming scientists

It is here that they pose the question: exactly what is an aesthetic

also become a site of aesthetic dialogue with scientists. The standards

themselves. In a pragmatist way, this entails access to resources. This

intervention in the biosciences? And what becomes of aesthetics in

for scientific photographs are quintessentially formalist. The scientists

doesn’t mean that all radical possibilities of transgression have been

the contaminated culture of science?

loved Bioteknica’s slides, as the duo was consistently able to capture

abandoned. According to Shawn:

the “aura” around the cell (the light reflection off cell boundaries). Eight

We have violated many laws and regulations and moral codes in

Wild Observations on the Unruly Aesthetics of Science

years in art school had them producing beautifully framed and well lit

both of our art practices over the years. One has to choose your

We aestheticize and even, I would go so far to say, fetishize a lot

photographs that were the jealousy of every scientist. Scientists love

battles. For me, right now the endgame is being able to accom-

of equipment in the lab. The relationship Shawn and I have to

perfect photographs for their journal articles. Observation three: an

plish what we want to accomplish, which is growing these kinds

science is a conflicted one. We have slightly differing opinions

aesthetic of the beautiful permeates the cellular sciences. Observa-

of new life forms and to really focus the debate upon the com-

and we will argue often over little points here and there... But

tion four: one can observe the tremendous waste in the biosciences,

mercialization of life forms that are technologically mediated.

in general both Shawn and I have a deep, deep respect, love,

the non-recyclable materials, the vast amounts of resources required

That’s worth compromising some degree of the artistic or radical

appreciation and aesthetic interest in science and medicine. But

to keep very small things alive; the politics of sustainability has yet to

intentionalities by adhering to State and government guidelines

at the same time we are both deeply critical, analytical, interested

invade. We are now able to make a meta-observation: all manner of

of how to proceed in such a way that hopefully we wind up with

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Bioteknica performance with tobias.dj, Cabaret for Critical Art Ensemble, UpgradeMTL.org, 22 September 2005. Photo: Sophie Le-Phat Ho.

a sterile tissue culture lab, engineering facilities, and cryogenic facilities at our disposal, that we can work with in a way that is productive. There are two forthcoming goals. The first is to develop a gallery installation certifiable as a Level 1 lab (out of four levels, Level 1 is the lowest, but conforms to criteria of sterility and utility). The second is to gain a permanent “lab of their own,” thus opening the possibility of creating nothing less than Bioteknica’s own cell line from a piece of Shawn’s ass. In Shawn’s words, “the protocol that we are developing is to have a skin biopsy done,” which is a nice way of expressing that a four-inch piece of his ass will be removed and grown into a nasty little culture. Bioteknica have researched the way it has worked in the past and know of the extraordinary difficulties of growing ass; developing one’s own “immortal” ass cell is a complex protocol and their chance of success is low. Yet the possibilities of ass culture are amazing. Once one has one’s own ass on the line, one can bypass ATCC regulation (informed by U.S. law and military interests) and make ass available on a not-for-profit basis. As Jennifer remarks, a Bioteknica cell line would be what she calls a “critical participatory methodology” in action. “We’re utilizing scientific protocols in order to engage in art production. But then it became even more convoluted as we started thinking about what is our working methodology, and we do have a very experimental working methodology where we bring together a set of ideas, concepts, space time objects, dut dut dah, and then see what erupts out of that, what happens, setting off a chain of events.” Here the chain of events goes from early representational work to learning the ropes to using those ropes to hang—or at least submit to bondage—the ringmaster. One is implicating oneself in the structure and taking it one step further, as both the propagator and subject of biotech: I am the educator, the 37

artist, and the work itself. The question is whether an aesthetic project

Cancer of this Mortal Coil

replication, usually of images or billboards, such as the détournement

same moment. As Shawn says, “The interesting thing about cancer is

is able to generate change in the overall structure; if, by sticking out

For Bioteknica, the horrific and the abject are the most beautiful.

or disruption and reappropriation of corporate media seen frequently

that it is a cell that has decided to become immortal.” Bioteknica are

one’s own ass, one can hand the ATCC its ass on a platter. If it works,

The teratoma cell lines are an object of great fascination—these cell

by the likes of Adbusters and developed by the Situationist Interna-

not interested in the melancholy of these very material “motifs.” They

Bioteknica’s endeavour will announce the first widely—if not wildly—

lines of cancer horded for scientific investigation—and it is tempting

tional—a cancerous methodology could not be adopted by marketing

are certainly not romantics, as Jennifer expresses, and citing Susan

available, Creative Commons style cell line with share-like attribution

to argue for a new aesthetic strategy, one that, post-viral, would align

strategy. In this case it would, on the one channel, be ultimately suc-

Sontag from Illness and Metaphor, they are not caught up in gothic

for bioscience and aesthetic research. And, yes—Shawn would have

itself with the cancerous. Possible though it may be to discern its out-

cessful, though deadly so, in destroying its capitalist host, along with

mourning for the death of a young poet. Rather they are captured by

to be weary of his own ass. As one’s own immortal cells are danger-

lines in Bioteknica’s work, the duo denies any such conscious “can-

itself. In a sense, teratomic strategy could not be reappropriated. But

the teratoma cell lines because cancer is portrayed as the holy grail

ous to oneself, at stake would be a deadly, performative relationship

cerous” strategy. Even Shawn’s fetish for the death-drive, marked by

if it cannot be reappropriated it is because teratomic strategy already

for human cloning, and so, precisely, remains a “double-edged sword

with one’s own “work.” Unlike Jennifer, Shawn sees this autothana-

his love for abject beauty and dangerous self-experimentation—and

exists. Like cancer, as it is cancer, the ontos and techne of cancer, it is

as it is often fatal. Cancer is a cultural object, lived object, a thing.” It

tology—the study of one’s own death—at the level of the methodol-

even as he annuls the eventual critical outcome of their work through

already within: it has already begun and died a thousand deaths. And

reflects, in itself and its strategy of growing-toward-death, the com-

ogy itself. For Shawn, all oppositional critical operations are, a propos

an investment in Adorno—does not allow any such possibility of ter-

would not capitalism itself be the cancer of the species-being? Cancer

plexity of ideas concerning biotechnology. Cancer clones itself indefi-

Theodor Adorno, “ultimately unsuccessful and doomed to fail” and

atomic strategy.

has a hint of nihilism to it that at the same time contains something

nitely, until it kills the host. It offers itself to us as the pharmakon of

thus destined to become reappropriated by the biotech industry. Yet

While a cancerous praxis might be “critical” and “participatory”—to

of the beauty that tinges all that is beyond good and evil. Bioteknica

the 21C, the poison and the cure. A cancerous methodology could

that does not stop him from being “concerned and critical about the

grow within, to expand unstoppable as the operation of critical death,

find themselves drawn to these zones of the abject, that which is nei-

thus be multiplied otherwise in aesthetic practice, but only in a nihil-

nature of some of the protocols being used in the lab, and the com-

to throw the host, literally, into crisis—it would also be self-defeat-

ther subject nor object: the horrific state of the corpse, the cultural

ist endgame, for example, as deadly mutation of the host itself—the

mercialization and corporatization of these protocols,” including the

ing and paradoxical. Cancerous methodology would entail multiply-

manifestations of ritual in death and war, our fear of the mortal coil,

laboratory otherwise, all the world a laboratory, all the worlds, experi-

secrecy of research whose outcomes “will affect our entire ecology.”

ing indefinitely in the host. Such a methodology is self-defeating as

the devastation of technology—and yet, also and significantly, from

ments of the multitude gone awry—infinitely until it, us—we—kill our

Too many times is assing around the property of being an ass; at least

it would kill the host itself as well as the cancer—that is, the aesthetic

the personal and embodied sense of witnessing cancer in those close

greater Host—the Earth. The endgame cancer plays, as the corps of

even in this doomed scenario of poking holes in the science of grow-

strategy, if not technically and vitally, the artists themselves. Unlike

to them. Cancer irrupts from within, or rather is what happens when

humanity, is the corpse of catastrophe. In this sense, humanity itself is

ing ass, it will be the biotech industry getting it up.

the viral motif of tactical media—secret infiltration, incorporation and

the immune system fails to irrupt that which it patrols and protects.

already a cancer. For Shawn:

Cancer is not the next evolutionary step but is a breakdown in the

Viruses are beautiful... [T]hey get in there, they assimilate them-

continuous cancer of the cell (though might it not lead to evolution-

selves, they ultimately become part of the host. Whereas the

ary mutation?) Cancer is always already inside us. We are always ap-

cancer of the tumour doesn’t do any of those things. It’s greedy,

proaching the limit of cancer—it’s just that most of the time, cancer is

it’s a greedy new organ that…takes as much as it can get its

kept in check. What keeps it in check is nothing less than death itself.

hands on. If anything, cancer is a fucking outstanding metaphor

Cancer irrupts when the cell refuses to die. As the cell evades death

for the times that we live in because the entire fucking human

it grows into its own useless organ—the tumour, the teratoma, the

race is a fucking cancer on the face of this planet, and every en-

zombie sculpture of living tissue, the bringer of death. We all need

vironmental report coming out right now indicates that we are

a little bit of death to avoid our untimely death. Thus we get cancer

completely fucked, on every level. Which raises some really, re-

x-times a day; but as the immune system breaks down—from all the ecological damage to our world that over saturates the body with pol-

ally, really disturbing questions. Indeed. ls

lutants, from overexposed sunlight to cigarette tar—cell DNA gathers mutations in the cell, and the human body’s state of quasi-cancer can no longer be arrested. The Hayflick Limit of preprogrammed cell death that eventually leads to our aging and natural death is overcome (52 cell divisions). In this sense, cancer does pertain to the viral motifs of the excess of the limit, as found in the writings of William S. Burroughs (language as a virus, and all the strategies toward its disruption) and Jacques Derrida’s writings on consciousness qua virus. Cancer would be the non-viral proliferation of self toward immortality by an abject part of the self. It is the uncanny within, asserting its own autonomy, refusing to die and yet accelerating death in the

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Thanks to Bioteknica for sharing their germs & gems with me. Notes 1 Landecker, Hannah, “Immortality, In Vitro. A History of the HeLa Cell Line,” in Biotechnology and Culture, Ed. Paul E. Brodwin, Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2000, p. 61. All subsequent quotes unless otherwise noted from Landecker’s essay. 2 American Type Culture Collection [atcc.org]. “The Global Bioresource Centre,” and currently one of the only places to get cells and other biological material for research. As Bioteknica explain, this non-profit organization nonetheless demands U.S. protocols -- thus U.S. political decisions concerning, for example, stem cell research could affect research worldwide. 3 Genetically Modified Organisms. 4 [fishersci.com] 5 Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts [isea.org]. 6 All quotes from an interview conducted 03/02/07, over wine, in Montréal. Facing page: Shawn Bailey and Jennifer Willet, BIOTEKNICA LiveLifeLab Documentation. Department of Biology, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. 2007.

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