Man Made Hybrid explores the impact and ramifications of genetically modified organisms, specifically GMO food processes and synthetic biology.
When> August 23rd – 3rd September 2011
Where> Heronswood, the home of the Diggers Club
105 Latrobe Parade, Dromana, VIC (melway 159 C9)
Exhibition, gardens, cafe open 9-5 each day
Man Made Hybrid is a satelite exhibition of the Craft Victoria Craft Cubed Festival, which in 2011 has the theme “Hybrid”.
New combinations of genes “built” by genetic engineers in a laboratory result in new versions of living things, which would not otherwise occur in nature; these hybrids are man made synthetic forms of life. Man Made Hybrid explores the natural imperitive of genetic information; the instructions that control how living things grow, develop and carry out life processes and survive.
The works in Man Made Hybrid focus on the connections within the biological universe, and question the science that overbears our intricate connection to the natural world. Artist Samantha Scott employs her cross-disciplinary practice to create delicate compositons of natural and industrial materials; imaginative extrapolations alluding to microbiological forms, combined with created artificial landscapes imbued with allusions to the fragility of nature and our connection to the biological universe.
Man Made Hybrid is exhibited at Heronswood, the home of the Diggers Club, and is a National Trust Registered Estate. The exhibition is sited within an environment that enhances and extends the ethics of the works, whilst the beauty of the surrounding gardens is symbiotic with the experiential states created in Man Made Hybrid.
Genetic engineers are altering life on earth. Genetically engineered foods and drugs are already globally in wide-spread use, and scientists are developing many more genetically engineered plants and animals for future human consumption.
Genetic engineering is the deliberate alteration to an organisms genes or instruction codes. The result is an altered organism; one specifically produced to portray desired characteristics. Genetic engineering alters genes and transfers or moves them between living things. New gene combinations cannot transfer naturally between diverse organisms. Nature does not mix different species, but genetic engineers are breaking the species barriers that nature set in place; transferring genes between totally unrelated species.
G.M technology has taken the genes of Arctic fish species, and inserted them into tomatoes, strawberries and potatoes to create frost resistant varieties. Scientists have transferred a gene from fire-flies and inserted this into tobacco to make tobacco crops glow in the dark for 24 hour harvesting, and potatoes that glow when thirsty. (The same fire-fly gene has been used in the new G.M pet trade on mice, fish, frogs and rabbits, for designer pets that glow in the dark.) G.M potatoes are being developed to have a lower water content for quicker frying. Pigs have been grown with spinach genes inserted in their DNA to create pork products with less saturated fat content. Spider genes have been inserted into goat DNA to manipulate the goats milk to produce a spider web protein that could be manufactered for use in bullet proof vests. Cows, salmon and chicken are inserted with growth hormones for higher yields. Human genes have been inserted into corn to produce spermicide. Australian scientists inserted a gene into the DNA of cows to produce high protein milk, then cloned the cows so that four identical GM animals were produced instead of only one; milk yields up, genetic diversity down! Pharmaceutical companies use gene technology in their billion dollar industries, inserting genes into bacteria, creating living factories for drug production and the huge bio tech companies create seeds which give new traits to crops.
Proponents of GM food technology say the science enables the wide scale production of crops that can be modified to be resistant to pests, diseases and drought. The GM technology is being promoted as having the capability of feeding the world and solving the world’s food shortages. Yet it is large corporations in rich countries that own the patents to the GM seeds. (the same rich industrial countries where obesity is a problem and mountains of food surplus is formed because of economics and agricultural policies). The patented GM seeds lock farmers into a vicious cycle of dependency as the GM seed companies engineer their plants to produce sterile seeds that are incapable of producing plants. The farmers must buy the seed and chemicals and fertilisers that the seeds are dependant upon all from the same company. This is a monopoly on production. A monopoly creating chronic situations in developing countries where farmers are stuck in a poverty cycle of dependency when the GM crops do not automatically produce higher yields, but automatically create higher debt.
Concern should be focused on the fact that only a handful of bio-tech companies worldwide have the money, power and influence to produce the GM food technology, that could soon control our food supply. Do we disregard what nature has always shown us; that genetic diversity is the best way to ensure fitness and survival.
Hide and Seek is a satellite exhibition of the Craft Victoria Craft Cubed Festival, which has the theme “childhood”. The art works created for Hide and Seek explore the connections between identity and object permanence. At birth we have no sense of personal identity, we include our mother/parents, surrounding others and all objects as a continuation of ourselves. Slowly a child gains a sense of self, the formation of personal identity develops via interactions and experience.
The natural objects and materials in these pieces are my own personal “trace”triggers; their ephemeral qualities also refer to the fleeting nature and fragility of childhood, the changing seasons, the changing of self. The human hair is representative of self and identity, and the repetitive circular motif is a metaphor for cell structure, the very building blocks that link the natural world to our own personal existence.
