Week 6 Blog Post DESMA 9

 This week’s topic is about the connection between Biotech and Art. It seems like this would be an unusual pairing, but as we have discovered from past weeks, art can be found in unexpected places. I was particularly intrigued by an artist introduced to me from this week’s material named Joe Davis. [1]   

Joe Davis created the first genetically-engineered work of art and organized the most powerful radar signals for extraterrestrial intelligence ever transmitted [4]. He is currently a research affiliate in the Department of Biology at MIT, and a research scientist at the George Church Laboratory at Harvard Medical School [2]. Davis first attracted attention in the 1980s with his artwork “Microvenus”, where he used a resistant microorganism that can survive in space to permanently store information about us humans and thus send it to the most distant places and possible other intelligences in the universe [3].

[2]

In this project he encoded a symbol for life and femininity into an E. coli bacterium [1]. In an interview with Joe, he revealed that he has no scientific credentials whatsoever, yet feels the greatest thrill of all when he merges art and science [5].
[3]

I thought this was very enlightening, and hits on a major point of what we have been discussing from week one of this quarter. I found Joe Davis to be a fascinating individual, and was shocked that I had never heard of him or his groundbreaking work before. 

Works Cited
    [1] Caputo, Joseph. “Bioart: An Introduction.” EurekAlert!, CellPressNews, 3 Nov. 2015, https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/666865.
    [2] Davis, Joe. “A Lecture on BioArt.” Art, Culture, and Technology (ACT), MIT, 31 Oct. 2019, http://act.mit.edu/event/joe-davis-bioart/.
    [3] “Joe Davis: In Search of Paradoxes.” Ars Electronica Blog, https://ars.electronica.art/aeblog/en/2021/11/22/joe-davis-paradoxes/.
    [4] Reus, Jonathan. “Joe Davis.” Mediamatic, https://www.mediamatic.net/en/page/89158/joe-davis.
    [5] Stulin, Sam. “Scientist? Artist. Pirate! Who Is Joe Davis?” Youtube, Nova PBS Official, 10 Sept. 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GkZt00Qics. 

Images Cited
    [1] Carey, Brainard. “Joe Davis.” Interviews from Yale University Radio WYBCX, 24 May 2018, https://museumofnonvisibleart.com/interviews/joe-davis/.
    [2] “Joe Davis, from Microvenus to Astrobiology.” CLOT Magazine, 29 Sept. 2017, https://www.clotmag.com/biomedia/joe-davis.
    [3] “Weird Science: Joe Davis - The Mad Scientist of Harvard and MIT.” Second Home, 2016, https://secondhome.io/event/weird-science-joe-davis-the-mad-scientist-of-harvard-and-mit/. 

Comments

  1. Vivek ChotaiMay 4, 2022 at 2:22 AM

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  2. Vivek ChotaiMay 4, 2022 at 2:24 AM

    Hi Erik, I too had not heard about Joe Davis before this week's lectures. I see you found him to be a fascinating man, which is totally cool. I have a different opinion--I think he was kinda weird. Like think of the Cardi B meme where she raises her eyebrow. Isn't it suspicious that his work revolved around femininity so much? Like he's a dude, and there's nothing wrong with men supporting feminism, but was he really supporting women? He wasn't even a scientist and started claiming things about femininity based on trying to connect science to his thoughts. All I'm saying is if two people were talking about femininity, and one is some old dude who keeps obsessing over women, whereas the other dude has maybe taken a class or two about the subject, I'd choose the guy who took the classes. Maybe I'm completely wrong, and Joe is an awesome guy. Who knows, I'm going off of the lectures and I've never met him. Thanks for the post.

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