Unit 6 BioTech + Art

I found the segment on Joe Davis to be extremely fascinating this week. I never knew that there was such thing as "Bio Artist." One of his projects that caught my attention was briefly mentioned in the first lecture. Professor Vesna mentioned that he conducted an experiment that involved measuring the growth of E coli bacteria in regards to the music that was being played for the bacteria. He played a variety of different genres for the bacteria and measured its growth based on that. As someone who is passionate about music, it was nice to make an artistic connection to a scientific experiment.

That being said, I looked into other experiments that could have been conducted with the same guidelines. I discovered an experiment conducted by NASA back in 2004 and what I found was it is not necessarily the musical and lyrics instruments that affect the bacteria growth, but rather it is the sound waves and vibrations that speed up or slow down the growing process. Viewing this as an art form is something that would not have been made possible without people like Joe Davis. The information and insight that has been found out because of him thinking outside of the box is something that can even benefit the world of medicine.

While the topic of Biotech and art experiments is very controversial, it is both inspiring and eye opening to see how many endless possibilities there are when it comes to regarding something as art, and when it comes to regarding something as inhumane. I found this experiment to be something that can be regarded as an art form because it involves music as an art form and it can be viewed as  something that can be beneficial to the medical world, because being able to better understand bacterial growth can only benefit us from contracting diseases. 

Works Cited 

Levy, Ellen. “Defining Life: Artists Challenge Conventional Classifications.”Context Providers: Conditions of Meaning in Media Arts. Eds. Margot Lovejoy, Christiane Paul, and Victoria Vesna. University of Chicago Press: 2011.

Vesna, Victoria, narr. “BioTech Art Lectures I-V.” N.p., . web. 5 May 2015. 

http://www.viewingspace.com/genetics_culture/pages_genetics_culture/gc_w03/davis_joe.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Davis_%28artist%29

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20040152083.pdf

Bacteria Images: 
http://www.thermapure.com/environmental-services/bacteria/
http://www.playbuzz.com/maryfs10/which-pathogenic-bacteria-are-you