The series began last October with Human Nature I: The Natural World, which highlighted artworks and scientific imaging that depict our relationship with animals, the environment, our bodies, and our place within the global ecosystem. The second part of the exhibition, Human Nature II: Future Worlds, is currently on display in the SoFA Gallery and will run February 9 – March 9. Future Worlds investigates contemporary initiatives and cutting-edge breakthroughs in the life sciences that will impact the future of biological life on earth. 

Contemporary artists are creating artworks that challenge scientific authority and draw attention to the ways scientific knowledge shapes our perception of life and our bodies. Although many of the artworks on display are overtly critical, commonly, they lament over the social, economic, and political factors that determine how we use new knowledge, and not the existence of the knowledge itself. Several artists mimic the scientific process or conduct real scientific experiments in order to create artworks that acknowledge the cultural and spiritual implications of the powerful abilities of advanced science. 

Paul Vanouse creates electronic media artworks that critique contemporary economics, politics and society. The artist will perform a live science experiment as part of his on-going artwork Latent Figure Protocol, 2005-2006, at the opening reception for Future Worlds. His past experiments have involved manipulating genetic data extracted from cheek cells and transgenic BT maize crops in order to create culturally critical imagery. 

Transgenic artist Eduardo Kac presents his provocative installation Genesis, 1999, which centers around E-coli bacteria, into which the artist incorporates a synthetic gene. Kac engineers the gene by translating a quote from the Bible into DNA base pairs. The installation is a laboratory that allows viewers to participate in a creation story by using scientific technology to cause the genetic specimens to mutate. The artist will give a lecture on Bio Art before the opening reception for Future Worlds.

By playing a trick on the viewer Susan Robb’s series of 32 type c prints Macro-fauxology, 2000, critically replaces scientific authority with individual creativity. Images of what appear to be germs, genetic materials and spores actually document materials like Play-doh, moss, glass cleaner. Sculptor, video and new media artist Christa Erickson’s animated tabletop database, dis-ease, 2003 - , invites contemplation of scientific authority, by allowing the viewer to sift through information on specific diseases, methods of healing, and advancements and atrocities found in the history of medicine. The artwork houses truths and lies that are told about the human body and asks viewers to add their own experiences with illness to its database. 

A mixture of biological, mechanical, material, and sci-fi elements comprise Elona Van Gent’s sculptural creatures (Trespass is pictured above) made by rapid prototyping. Her animal-machine hybrids playfully engage with human fascination in mythical and anomalous beings. Richard Krueger’s ink jet prints depict a vision of a hybridized natural world, complete with techno-creatures and a genetically mutated environment glowing in the background. Eva Sutton’s video projection, Mutations, 2003, makes the fantasy interactive by allowing viewers to generate images of hybrids out of animals, humans, plants, and microscopic organisms.

Several exhibiting artists create aesthetic and symbolic frameworks within which we can process information about biological life. Suzanne Anker’s installation Micronatural, 2006, establishes a relationship between symbolism in language and the way science describes genetics and human development. Individual artworks in the installation visualize life by employing a range of symbolic systems, from calligraphy to Cubism. Examining the intersections between artistic and scientific process, Jaq Chartier uses chemical stains, acrylic gels, and paint to mimic the imagery created by gel electrophoresis, a process that causes components contained in DNA to separate by molecular weight. The artist charts how the chemicals react to each other and to environmental factors, utilizing the scientific process for aesthetic ends.

In March, the SoFA Gallery will host interdisciplinary events to round-out Human Nature. Art historian Barbara Maria Stafford will present a lecture related to the use of technology to visualize the world. A public forum and discussion with faculty members from the IU Medical Center and Indiana University, Bloomington will establish a dialog between the artistic and scientific communities and allow the public to contribute their own thoughts on Human Nature. Find out more about the exhibition at the official Human Nature website at http://www.indiana.edu/~sofa/human_nature/ and the SoFA Gallery website at http://www.indiana.edu/~sofa.

Today we are living the midst of a major transition that is bringing us knowledge of the biological world unparalleled in the history of science. As we gain new information about life from studies conducted in the fields of genetics, medicine, biotechnology, and genomics, reflection upon the implications of our new abilities is socially relevant. The qualities of our future world are being determined by how contemporary society is utilizing scientific intelligence today. Potential to make our fantasies and scientific desires a reality is upon us. Artists in Future Worlds are exposing the power humans have to manifest our imaginations and shape the world around us, for better or worse.