Second Skin
Recently my girlfriend and I have been noticing a strange synchronicity between things we talk about one night and the news we read and hear the next day. Last night she was wondering if people would be interested in the things she might post to the hippoblog, such as "Look at my new purse." Then, upon considering the tilt of this blog, she appended, "...made of human skin!" Now look at this article from today's Wired:
Jacket Grows From Living TissueFancy a partially alive jacket, possibly grown out of your own skin? In reality, it may not be that far away.
Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr at the Tissue Culture & Art Project are attempting to grow a semi-living jacket in an effort to create 'victimless leather.' Hoping to highlight the possibility of wearing leather without killing an animal, the duo is presently focused on growing living tissue into a leather-like material and having it mature in the form of a miniature, stitchless, coat-like shape.
It gets worse. (Or better.)
The artists are also designing what they call a MetaBody, creating a semi-living object consisting of different tissues that originate from different bodies. They will be collaborating with the French performance artist Orlan, who constantly experiments with her own face, using plastic surgery to transform herself into the quintessence of classical beauty: a new being modeled on Venus, Diana, Europa, Psyche and Mona Lisa.
The artists will culture Orlan's own skin and hybridize it with skins of different pigmentation from other people of different races to create a miniature Harlequin dress. By culturing these tissues together while they are stripped from the bodies' immune systems and making them a single, semi-living entity, they intend to abolish identities of individuals, genders, races and species.
They'll also be growing facial parts for Stelarc, an Australian artist who explores extending the body through prosthetics. The duo plans to grow a nose, lips and a shape of the eyes, connecting them to form a living mask that would either imitate a face or represent a mutation of it.
"We are the wizards from Oz," joked Zurr. "In many ways, working with Orlan and Stelarc we are doing what the Wizard of Oz (did), and we have a bigger idea in the works. We will ask people to tell us what organ they want us to grow in order to enhance their feeling of well-being and we will do that for them and we will see if it works or not."
I think I'd rather see my girlfriend's new purse.
* Ray, 10/12/2004 01:07:46 PM
