Ethical implications and boundaries existing between art, science, and life itself (S1E5)
Bioart is a rapidly evolving field that merges biology, technology, and art to create thought-provoking works that challenge our perceptions of life, identity, and the human condition. It has the potential to instigate debates about emerging scientific technologies and drive innovation in genetic engineering.
So, where should we draw the line between utopic and dystopic evolution in science and biotechnology? How can we use Bioart to communicate scientific ideas to a broader audience and encourage public engagement with science? What is the potential of Bioart to inspire new ways of thinking about the relationship between humans, technology, and the environment?
In this Season 1 Episode 5 of The Art in STEAM podcast, we are joined by Noémie Soula — an emerging designer, artist and researcher whose interdisciplinary work explores the future of biotechnology, biology, and the human body.
Listen to the full episode on Spotify, Amazon Music and Apple Podcasts.
[Femmes Designers] What would you say drove you to become interested in bio art and creating in this field? What is the most concerning bit for you about the way biotech is growing and its potential?
[Noémie Soula] I'll answer your question in two parts because I trained in science before going to design. I was quite young when I decided to go into Design and change careers because I saw potential in Design, and the humanistic and human approach towards science could be very powerful. I think that was the first shift on saying that science as it is now; I can’t feel myself in it, so that's why I kind of dropped biology on the way. I think the pressing issue of looking at those biotechnologies really had to do with ethics. That was my first main interest as I learned about those technologies and how they developed.
There was this question of how we relate to those as humans, but how does it change our relationship with the ecology and the environment we live in? So, I think there is potential to fix and break this link with nature. So there is a very careful consideration. And I think with my work, I want to encourage people to think about this relationship so we don't jump too fast. You know, we are just a bunch of cells that live. So that’s more the poetic part of bringing us back together within our biology and nature, but also bringing back that ethical consideration. We are thinking creatures, so we need to think about our impact. And I think that's very important.
[FD] That's beautiful. And what kind of responses do you get from your work when you exhibit it? Let's say, in “Raw/À Vif”, you were looking into growing organs in labs, and that's already a big thought-provoking question to put these kinds of examples in front of people… What is the body? What is a human? What is not human? Where do we draw that line? And can you give a couple of anecdotes on how people reacted? Or what kind of conversations, if any, were there in reaction to that?
[NS] Yeah, I think the funniest part is like they are, most of the people are quite fascinated, but also disgusted. This is this quite interesting crossover of the feeling of being attracted to something because it looks very strange but familiar, but horrible. It’s this kind of layer of feelings that you have. People make faces like, “Oh, what’s that?” really disgusted, and other moments where they are fascinated “How'd you get that?”. Lots of questions of “How Did you know? Did you know someone? Are you a scientist?” So, there is curiosity and disgust altogether, and it's about knowing how to navigate that as an artist because I want to create emotion in people. I don't control what emotion I'm going to create. But there is something about being. That’s the concept of Noel Carroll, a philosopher who wrote the ‘Paradoxes of the Heart’, and he says people look for being heart-horrified, so they are horrified but in an artistic way. So they are looking at how this could bring them emotion without leaving the thing. I think those are very powerful. It brings back friction in it where because it's to make-believe, then it's a bit different. It makes them have emotions without being in reality. And so they can think and have time. So I think that was this important point in having debates beforehand. Especially within ethical debates, it's very important to ask questions before the technology is there. We don't grow organs fully into a petri dish yet, but we do grow cells, and we can 3D print, and they can be embedded into 3D prints.
[FD] It's like our imagination can grow so much faster than what is possible. And that's where we start talking about dystopia and utopia, like, “What if we can grow cells? What if we could grow whole humans? What if we could grow an arm?” And in some cases, it might be useful.
[NS] Definitely, there is this health potential in that technology. But there is this risk of, you know, Mary Shelley and Frankenstein coming into it. Those questions were already there two centuries ago about what it means to create a human. There is a notion of “Can we be God?” in a certain way. How much control do we have over our bodies? Should we have that control? There are many questions I don't have real answers to, but it's about asking these questions more than finding answers, or at least it's my role; someone else will find the answers.
[FD] There might be many answers.
[NS] Exactly.
