science and bioart

Looking at all the different bioart for our little presentations was a very interesting experience,and a few observations stood out in particular. The first was that art has just as much to do with the state of mind with which you view something as the actual subject matter itself. The boundary between art and science seems to be less in the procedure by which you create something than in the view you take of the final product.

Another interesting aspect of the bioart was that it always seemed to have some sort of embedded message, as opposed to just being something pretty to look at. I know that my piece, Move 36 by Kac, though fairly simple to look at, had at least four different levels of meaning, all achieved by the fairly simple arrangement of a plant on a chess board. I particularly like the comparison between organic and artificial intelligence, which asked the question of whether there is a definite boundary between the two, or even if there is actually any boundary at all. Are our brains just complex computers running some sort of life skills software, or is that metaphor just a superficial comparison which misses some sort of deep irreconcilable differences between the two.

A final interesting aspect of the bioart was the mutability of nature that many of the pieces highlighted and exploited. Instead of viewing the environment around us as an inevitability, it paints life as a plastic process which can be purposefully molded, a medium for artistic expression as well as survival.