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Victimless leather: science meets art
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Science meets art in the Victimless Leather Project, where cells are grown to form a miniature leather jacket. |
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How many of us notice the fashion victims instead of the victims of fashion - those that move among us everyday: swinging from our arms, matching our shoes, or hugging our waist?
We all know where leather comes from, but we are so distanced from the reality of cow to coat that it is rarely a confronting issue that an animal has died in the process. The Victimless Leather Project is not a way to cast off your shackles of guilt, nor a project designed to burden your conscience. It exists to facilitate your exploration of the distance technology places between us the consumer, and the victims of fashion.
Oron Catts, artistic director of SymbioticA, is a tissue engineering artist and founder of the Tissue Culture and Art Project (TC&A). Oron and his collaborator Ionat Zurr have created the victimless leather jacket, grown using immortalised cell lines and cultured to form a living layer of tissue. The cells are grown over a biodegradable polymer in the shape of a miniature coat, supporting the tissue - or leather - until the polymer degrades leaving behind a miniature leather jacket.
This is just one example of the TC&A project's artistic manipulation of living materials using the tools of modern biological research. Oron's work involves interesting science meeting art. Oron emphasises, "This is not vivisection, nor is it genetic engineering, it is simply growing cells into shapes and forms," to create what Oron and his team call 'the semi living'.
'Simply' is an understatement, as the messages communicated though Oron's art use science as their tool. Extracting and growing cells, and constructing 'technoscientific bodies' to house the unique living artworks, are just two of the scientific challenges Oron and Ionat face when expressing their ideas.
"The research and development of 'victimless leather' is conducted in a unique environment; in SymbioticA: The Art and Science Collaborative Research Laboratory in the School of Anatomy and Human Biology at the University of Western Australia," explained Oron.
Oron believes that art and science should engage one another and the Victimless Leather Project is the perfect example.
"It is designed to explore our relationship between other living beings, manipulated or otherwise," he said.
"The use of animals and animal parts by people have been around since our inception, from domestication of animals and selective breeding to the mass production of animal goods such as leather and meat which are accepted as the norm in our society," said Oron.
"Yet when people are presented with our 'semi-living' entities that are biological systems artificially designed and need human and technological intervention for their survival and maintenance, we prompt the re-evaluation of the perception: what is life?
"The cells grown to create the victimless leather jacket were taken from human and mice cells from the 1960s," said Oron. "This was done to remove the victim or ensure no animal was directly harmed on account of the project."
Hence the name 'victimless leather'.
However before you get lulled into a false sense of security, Oron explained, "We are still using animal derived products to feed the tissue. In a sense the title 'victimless leather' is an ironic one, as this project is part of a series of works looking at the ways in which modern technology is pushing its victims ever so farther until they become invisible."
"The double standards of our society were apparent in the first showing of the victimless leather coat at a traditional leather exhibition," said Oron.
He describes the reaction of onlookers as curious as well as shocked.
"Some people were uncomfortable with the manipulation of life as they saw it by technology, without questioning the domestication, slaughter and processing of cows required to make leather," he explained.
The Victimless Leather Project is not about the good, the bad, or playing God. The project is the first step in questioning your assumptions about science, through the medium of science. Oron wants you to question the ethics of victimless leather, and perhaps you will find new questions about traditional methods lurking beneath the surface. |
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Why are we not shocked by our way of life? To see more interesting examples
of the symbiotic relationship between fascinating science and cutting
edge art see the Tissue, Culture and Art website |
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In Summer 2007 the reSkin Wearable Technology Lab placed jewellers, textile and fashion designers with new media and sound artists in an intensive three week research and development environment. This collaborative project was initiated by the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) and produced by ANAT in partnership with the Australian National University and Craft Australia |
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Traditionally the ANAT annual media labs focus on introducing the skills associated with emerging technological based forms and practices to a wide sector of Australian media arts practitioners, writers and curators. This year six international and national facilitators worked with twenty one participants creating interesting synergies and collaborations. The labs day-to-day activities are accessible via the reSkin blog. |
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