Biopoetry

Biopoetry is a new poetic form invented by Eduardo Kac in 1999 through “Genesis,” in which Kac created an “artist’s gene,” a synthetic gene that he translating a sentence from the biblical book of his artwork produced by and then Biopoetry Eduardo Kac Biopoetry is a new poetic form invented by Eduardo Kac in 1999 through “Genesis,” in which Kac created an “artist’s gene,” a synthetic gene that he translating a sentence from the biblical book of Genesis into Morse code converting the Morse code into DNA base pairs according to a conversion principle specially developed by the artist for this work. The sentence reads, “Let man have dominion over the fish fi of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” It was chosen for what it implies about the dubious notion of divinely sanctioned humanity’s supremacy over nature. The Genesis gene was incorporated into bacteria, which were shown in the gallery. Participants on the web could turn on an ultraviolet light in the gallery, causing real, biological mutations in the bacteria. This changed the biblical sentence in the bacteria. The ability to change the sentence is a symbolic gesture: it means that we do not accept its meaning in the form we inherited it, and that new meanings emerge as we seek to change it. “Genesis” explores the notion that biological processes are now writerly and programmable, as well as capable of storing and processing data in ways not unlike digital computers. Further investigating this notion, at the end of the show the altered biblical sentence was decoded and read back in plain English. The artist wishes to reveal that the boundaries between carbon-based life and digital data are becoming as fragile as a cell membrane. “Genesis” is in the permanent collection of the Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno (IVAM; Valencian Museum of Modern Art), Valencia, Spain. (Johns Hopkins University Press)