Cleanrooms event uses art to demystify science
A new exhibition uses cleanrooms as the focus for a series of installations in which artists interpret the world of biotechnology
The UK's Natural History Museum aims to "challenge the stereotype" that scientific research is "sometimes regarded as secretive, even sinister", by staging an exhibition entitled CleanRooms where visitors will be able to enter the world of biotechnology as seen through the eyes of artists.
Describing a cleanroom as a "closed, sterile environment where an experiment can be isolated from contaminants" and an "essential scientific tool", the exhibition is a collection of installations presented by the science-art agency, The Arts Catalyst. One of the collections, "Uncontrolled Hermetic", sees London-based artist Neal White examine the effect of the "super-controlled environment of biotechnology". The organisers say that building on his experiences as artist-in-residence at the Human Genome Mapping Centre at Hinxton and at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, he has created a "clean" environment that reveals the human body as "contaminator". A felt-covered human figure lingers outside the clean room and visitors must put on protective "bunny suits" before they enter the space. In another work called "Silvers Alter", Gina Czarnecki has life-size naked human figures inhabiting a large video installation inviting visitors to select and breed them to create new beings. The artist DNA-profiled 22 people to create a programme that can combine the physical characteristics of these individuals to create hybrids. Through this interactive medium, Czarnecki is said to expose a culture obsessed with physical appearance. New York artist Brandon Ballengee explores biotechnology from the perspective of humankind's intervention in nature since ancient times, with the installation "From Farm to Pharm". During a residency in Manchester in Autumn 2002, he worked with young people visiting local farms, pet shops, urban parks, markets and a biotechnology lab. They photographed, collected and collated over 1,000 images of animals and plants, which were then used to create time-lines depicting the changes brought about by domestication of animals and plants from antiquity to the present day. Brandon has since added to this collection of images, with new photographs taken behind the scenes at the Natural History Museum. Performing their participatory theatre piece "GenTerra" in the Museum's Darwin Centre, US tactical media group Critical Art Ensemble with Beatriz Da Costa will use DNA from human donors around the world to make bacteria. Visitors will have a chance to grow their own random human genome, which will become part of the exhibition.
