'I first began to investigate biology when I realised that it was a field I knew very little about. It was a time when important decisions were being taken about transgenic food, genetic engineering and the use of stem cells. I decided to learn by immersing myself in the latest developments in research and, in so doing, I discovered extraordinary possibilities for artistic expression,' says Marta de Menezes, a painter born in Lisbon. She joined the laboratory for evolutionary biology at Leiden University in the Netherlands where a team of researchers, headed by Professor Paul Brakefield, were working on butterflies. The result of this collaboration was Nature? De Menezes changed the patterns on one of the wings of an insect about to be born by pricking the chrysalis at very precise points. Butterflies treated in this way produced one wing with a pattern modified by human intervention and the other with the natural pattern. These works, obtained without genetic engineering and therefore non-transmissible, were deliberately transitory.
 

Nature? A butterfly with modified wings developed at Leiden University (NL). 'My main aim was to create works of art in which art and life are simultaneously present by using the possibilities of biology as a new medium for artistic creation.'

After producing 'DNA paintings' (Nucleart) at a British laboratory, in 2002, the Portuguese artist moved to Oxford University (UK) where she worked with Dr Patricia Figueirdo. Her attention there focused on functional magnetic resonance imaging. She used this technique ­ which makes it possible to visualise the brain's activity ­ to produce a series of ëfunctionalí portraits of a pianist while playing and of herself while painting. These illustrate her innovative approach to representing the invisible 'essence' of models which painters have always sought to capture. 

The DNA molecule ­ the billions of nucleotides just a tiny proportion of which is enough to contain all our genetic information ­ has always held a fascination for de Menezes, for whom they represent a kind of internal universe. This inspired her series entitled ëInner cloudsí. By precipitating an individual's DNA in a test tube, she obtained an opaque mass which she perceived as that personís 'inner cloud'.

'In the early 1990s, I was chiefly interested in auto-organised patterns, such as the spread of ink in non-coated paper. Working with living organisms, which are supremely auto-organised, was a logical extension of this approach. I have always been fascinated by plants, for example, as aesthetic objects as well as life forms,' says George Gessert.
 

Homage to Steichen, Steptocarpus hybrid, 1998' Walter Benjamin thought that mass produced works of art lost their aesthetic force. Ornamental plants prove the contrary.'

He practices a biotech art in which technology plays very little part. He cultivates, crosses and selects flowers without any contact with scientific institutions. A former student of horticulture, he has an extensive knowledge of biology, chemistry and entomology. He views gardening almost as a fine art and works in the tradition of the German Edward Steichen who exhibited his hybrid flowers at the New York Museum of Modern Art in 1936.

Gessert also makes a very specific selection, deliberately creating flowers unlikely to meet with much success on the horticultural market. Adopting a kind of 'Darwinism in reverse', he takes up a stance in opposition to the prevailing taste. His number one enemy is kitsch.

His work can seem purely aesthetic and in fact seeks to be precisely that, but it also includes reflections on death, time and eugenics. Gessert never forgets this sinister use made of genetics during the XXth century. 'We can only fully appreciate a work of art if we recognise the issues that it raises,' he explains. 

'It was the desire to capture a certain presence of a living organism, of a body, that brought me to bioart,' writes the Slovenian painter Polona Tratnik in her installation entitled 37°C. The presentation consisted of three 'aquariums' each containing small wax and latex statues covered in a skin cell culture taken from the artist at the Ljubljana Cell Type Differentiation Centre.
 

37°C: Kapelika roka, kapelica poglde, kapelica josk

In one, the cells are dead and decomposing. In another, they are lying dormant in a glass refrigerator. In a third, they are continuing to multiply at body temperature. The visitor is constantly faced with the contrast between the welcoming nature of the installation (familiar furniture, warm lighting) and an awareness of the artificiality (scientific devices, cold materials) of the living exhibits. A system which amplifies the sounds produced by the visitor serves as a constant and disturbing reminder of his or her own existence. 

Before using this cell culture, Polona Tratnik already sought to provoke the strange sensation ­ a mixture of attraction and repugnance ­ one experiences when touching the skin of a stranger. At that time, she was working with latex as a first step towards using laboratory skin, a tissue that is both artificial and living. 

Science? She uses it, and that is all. 'I am much more interested in provoking these emotions than in becoming a scientist.'
 
 

'Hybridisation' and 'poésie'. These are the two key words for Art Orienté Objet (AOO), the Parisian duo Marion Laval-Jeantet and Benoît Mangin. 'The basis of all our work is the consciousness of the living creature and its manipulation by science and society,' they explain. Logically, it is themselves which they 'manipulate' to produce their strange creations.
 

The artistsí skin deposited on a pig's dermis which is then tattooed. A human skin culture is too fine for this kind of operation. 'We present genuine pieces of ourselves, submitted to biotechnology. In this way, we are working with ourselves and no other living organism. This role as guinea pig is essential to our personal ethic.'

For Cultures de peaux díartistes, for example, they allowed a reputable US skin production laboratory (its products are used in treating burns) to take biopsies of their epidermis. In return, they were given samples deposited on a pig's dermis which they then tattooed with animal motifs, usually of endangered species or those used in biology. The skin, as the barrier of the self, thus becomes the site of a symbolic alliance and a questioning of the 'species barrier'. Their latest project, entitled Que le panda vive en moi, will consist of injecting themselves with panda's blood which has been rendered compatible. 

Born into a family of researchers and herself a scientist by training, Laval-Jeantet has had to 'reconcile her sense of the logic of reality subject to physical laws with that of the world of vision.' The duo have frequent meetings with scientific teams in the belief that it is impossible to envisage the mental, social and ecological impact of biotechnologies without a command of the tools. As a result, their work becomes the focus of an extremely precise and articulate discourse.

'The general public is shocked to see hybrids of our skin, but, in fact, what shocks is not so much the skin culture ­ even a hybrid one ­ as the fact of imagining the kind of world that such techniques imply,' believes Marion Laval-Jeantet. Her final comment? 'Art will have proved revelatory, and increasing our awareness of any issue is generally beneficial,' she concludes.