io9
The problem with bio-art is that it's often made of living tissue — and sometimes living tissue gets out of control. That's what happened late last week at a New York MoMA exhibit called "Design and the Elastic Mind," where a tiny living jacket made out of stem cells had to be put to death for growing too fast and trying to burst out of its container.
The art piece was called "Victimless Leather," and according to The Art Newspaper:
The artists, Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr, say the work which was fed nutrients by tube, expanded too quickly and clogged its own incubation system just five weeks after the show opened . . . Paola Antonelli, head of MoMA's architecture and design department and curator of the show, says she had to make the decision to turn off the life-support system for the work, basically "killing" it.I'm glad Antonelli made the right choice. You've got to kill these things before they grow into the lady from Species and start killing impressionable young art student boys in the bathroom after weird alien sex.Ms Antonelli says the jacket "started growing, growing, growing until it became too big. And [the artists] were back in Australia, so I had to make the decision to kill it. And you know what? I felt I could not make that decision. I've always been pro-choice and all of a sudden I'm here not sleeping at night about killing a coat...That thing was never alive before it was grown."
MoMA Exhibit Dies [Art Newspaper]
Comments
I think it was the lack of a jacket, or any clothes for that matter, that made "Species" so formidable and dangerous. And really, not sure if Natasha Henstridge is the right visual trap for young Art Student Boys if you catch my drift.
Of course, this begs the question of whether it'd be easier to kill a different sort of garment, like a skirt or a pair of shoes.
We are Soooooooo going to die off as a result of our own carelessness...
No asteroid impact. No nuclear war. No alien invasion. The Human race will be driven into extinction because some dummy leaves a test-tube of a lethal virus on a windowsill somewhere. Or some jackass' art exhibit mutates into something nasty...
The Dolphin's will laugh their asses-off. That is if they had asses...
I'm sorry, they couldn't pick up the phone and call Australia? If I were the artist, chilling in Oz blowing a bigger glass bubble thing for when my creation needed to be re-potted, I'd be pretty pissed.
LOL Oh the irony.
As you can see this is a cruelty free... Oh. My. God. The Jacket Moved! SHOOT IT! SHOOOOTTTT ITTTT!!!
@Slatz_Grobnik: It's a damn shame what they did to those stilletos
And of course this will spark the inevitable debate of just what rights our clothes have. Is it ethical to harvest our clothes? What sort of checks will be put in place to prevent cruelty in the euthanizing of your next pair of loafers?
Will our bio-garb be issued social security numbers? If so, will they be allowed to vote?
Good gravy, people, we need to start campaigning brainstorming right away! How will we campaign to a pair of pants to get it to vote for us in the upcoming elections?!
@Lizzie24601: I was wondering the same thing... All I can think of is that we're not being told something. That this jacket was a threat to all fashion-kind... You know, like with fringe.
Either that or someone was in a panic-induced power-trip.
@Smeagol92055: Clearly forcing clothes to be on us all the time is a form of slavery. So I say, release them from their bonds!! Everyone GIT NEKKID!!!
Garrison, have you not looked around at people in the US? Your suggestion would be a punishment to ME! :)
It signed its own death warrant the day it started forming elbow patches.
@Dunny0: Well perhaps I misinterpreted this. Perhaps the curator was the only one who knew The Truth about the menace of the earth-gobbling trousers, and had to act before it was too late. And the "artist in Australia" was just a cover story for the infiltrating alien race that was trying to enslave humanity. All hail the hero curator!
(I once wrote a musical about an art-eating alien posing as a museum curator. True story)
Seuss' "What was I Scared Of?" really should be required reading.
I believe the coat was bred as a killing machine. It was programmed to kill the designers of the MOMA exhibit's web site, which (it turns out) is the WORST WEB SITE IN THE WORLD:
[www.moma.org]
Maybe one day our vat-grown meat will arrive in wearable packages...
or leather jackets will be sold with vat-meat in the pockets...
Sausage and leather fetishists will be in heaven.
The rest of us will be nauseous...
@Lizzie24601: A musical, you say?
Maybe I'm just a sucker for musical theater (don't judge me!), but that sounds intriguing. Hell, having an alien in the "cast", as such, would lend itself to some interesting and experimental musical stylings...
Also, "earth gobbling-trousers" has become a part of my vocabulary. I cannot wait to use it in a conversation at work.
>> they grow into the lady from Species and start killing impressionable young art student boys in the bathroom after weird alien sex.
I fail to see the downside.
This discussion is starting to take a decidedly Douglas-Adamsonian turn. Where do they grow the jackets? Squornshellous Rho?
What's next, an outgrowth of an embryonic chicken heart by Alexis Carrel wannabees?
The artists' names are totally out of Star Wars. Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr? You are making this shit up!
@Dunny0: Oh, it was dreadful. I mean, it was actually really good for what it was, but it was dreadful. To wit: the cast of art-that-was-alive included a surrealist camelid named, of course, the Dali Llama.
"Earth gobbling-trousers" seems even more fun than where I placed the hyphen. Also, [xkcd.com]
Is this actually real, or are you pulling my leg?
I would like a jacket made out of lean beef, tearing tender, regrowing strips off as I walk.
"It's a dessert topping...and a floor wax!" Also, perhaps, modern art...
If only I could bio-engineer an award for that post title...It's a thing of (weird) beauty.
Umm, where does one get stem cells for use in art exhibits, anyway? I mean, aren't they kind of under strict control? Oh, and I think the concept of the piece is brilliant, and the irony - delicious :)
Well, at least it wasn't an exhibit at the Olympic Stadium.
"KANEDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
@Annalee Newitz
"You've got to kill these things before they grow into the lady from Species and start killing impressionable young art student boys in the bathroom after weird alien sex"
But Annalee.... how else are we supposed to keep the "emo" population under control... They need natural (or unnatural) predators.
It's a conspiracy. American clothes industry was threatened by the idea of growing clothes that would always fit to ever expanding Americans, so they ordered the curator to kill it.
@jjblu: I was about to say that horrible website interfaces should only be designed by the Peoples Republic, but that site seems like their MO.
I wasn't sure how to get to the FUCKING PICTURES OF THE EXHIBIT so I just came back here. You stay classy MOMA!
Oh man... stem cell dildos are so the Urutsukidoji of the future. We are so fucked.
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