Art?

I found it really interesting that Kac used a rabbit and a jelly fish as his medium to produce art and similarly with Caleb's presentation, the artist used butterfly's as her medium. This begs the question when does creating living art go too far? This is a topic that we have addressed throughout the semester in numerous forms. The idea that someone tinkering with life may be going too far is reflected with art in a slightly different form, but is still the using science to perhaps do something that is not moral. The difference of course being that the reasoning behind such an action is different. Instead of pushing science to perhaps inappropriate limits for the sake of research and development, these artists are doing it to better mankind by creating thought provoking pieces of culture. But when is such manipulation and interpretation pushed too far? When does art cross the line into immoral science? Is it when a person creates a creature that is not natural in this world (Kac's rabbit)? Is it the concept of creating life (as in Frankenstein)? Or is it even simply the very manipulation of something that is already living (like the butterflies), even if it causes absolutely no harm?

The answers to these questions are exceedingly difficult to decide, as we attempt to draw borders between living and non-living, plants and animals, and animals and humans. An interesting film that addresses this very issue is a Neil Labute play and film called "The Shape of Things". This is the story of an art graduate student who drops in on a man's life and begins to seemingly without really meaning to change his life for the better, however, what she is really doing is manipulating him for her art thesis project. She has chosen him as her medium and is creating art by changing him. This provocative film gives a perspective on what the living being would feel as it is manipulated unknowingly. Such a film adds a new viewpoint onto such a discussion and I strongly suggest examining it when answering such questions.