Singing cells, art, science and the noise in between - Users - UCLA

without “an active integration between the artistic sensibility and scientific way of
thinking in the future.” Sara Diamond, Artistic Director at The Banff Center for the Arts,
as well supports the thesis that in today’s era of technological advance, collaborations are
necessary in order to invent new forms of knowledge and new inter-disciplines. 27
1.3.3 Collaborations: breaking down borders
The intersection of disciplines naturally presents the question of collaboration. The old
concept of the comprehensively educated and skilled “homo universalis”, who had the
world’s knowledge at his disposal, could not be maintained beyond the 17 th century. 28
The rapidly growing complexity of knowledge required specialization in order to
advance.
Today, in a largely specialized world, collaborations are becoming more and more
necessary. Communication between many disciplines is required to put together the
puzzle pieces of knowledge. The comprehensive level of “Renaissance knowledge”
might be achieved by a team, but not by an individual. Or, as Bill Buxton puts it, they
idea of neo-Renaissance men and women is “nonsense”. 29 In my experience, artists
dealing with technology learn early in their career to value good team work, since
practical circumstances often require a number of people to create a piece of work.
The Tissue Culture & Art Project (TC&A) is an ideal example for an art-science group
that creates works building upon the combined knowledge and skills of its individual
members. Their work focuses on the intersection of artistic and scientific fields and
touches upon matters that are highly relevant in our society of rapid scientific progress.
The TC&A members all come from a background that fostered their interest in the arts,
biology and biotechnology. Oron Catts was trained in product design and specialized in
the future interaction of design and biologically derived technologies. Ionat Zurr studied
art history, photography and media studies and specialized in biological and digital
imaging. Both met as Research Fellows at the Tissue Engineering and Organ Fabrication
Laboratory at Harvard Medical School. Guy Ben-Ary, who joined the group in 1999, was
trained in programming, web development and law, and specialized in light microscopy,
biological and digital imaging. TC&A continues to produce works in the cutting edge
field of biotechnology, raising ethical questions and emphasizing the drastic potential
effects of biotechnology on society. 30
27 CodeZebra Habituation Cages is one of the projects that Diamond initiated to support her ongoing
investigations of collaborative processes. http://deaf.v2.nl/deaf/03/249-244-7-1-172-136-12-82-3-4-189-8-
232-225-120-225.py
28 Leonardo da Vinci is the role model of the “universal man”. The mathematician, physicist and religious
philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-62) is largely considered to be the last person who can be titled “homo
universalis”. Of course it can be argued that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) ranks among the
universally educated men that deserved this title.
29 Snow’s two cultures revisited, Bill Buxton, in Cyberarts, San Francisco: Miller Freeman Inc. 1992
30 The Tissue Culture & Art Project homepage: http://www.tca.uwa.edu.au/
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