While I attended the opening of this exhibition back at the beginning of the quarter on April 16, I think that by writing about the experience now having gone through the course gives me a good understanding of art, science and technology and a better understanding of the significance of the art I saw. This was the first art exhibition I had attended, so I went into the gallery not knowing what to expect. The first thing I noticed when I walked in was, "Oh hey, free food and drinks. This is fancy." Well, there were a few other students there as well, so I kind of followed suit and walked around the room, plate and napkin in hand, observing the pieces in front of me. The first thing I noticed was that in the middle of the room, there were poops in glass containers.
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Poops in glass
Remember, this was at the beginning of the quarter before I had learned about Medicine, Biotechnology and Bioart, so understand my confusion. However, after walking through the exhibit, and reading a bit about Kathy High, which we also learned about a few weeks ago in one of the lecture videos, I discovered that she has suffered from an autoimmune disorder called Crohn's disease. Since then, she has used art to express the importance of maintaining the immune system and connected this to research on microbiota. That explains the pictures I saw of kids playing and being happy on a colon, where a lot of gut bacteria lives as part of the immune system and helps to keep us healthy.
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| Parts of the "Re-mediator" series |
Back to the poops, I later learned that this piece was a form of Bioart that respresented fecal transplantation, a studied method of treatment for Crohn's disease. It was all connecting now. Overall, I enjoyed Kathy High's exhibit, and I would have recommended other people going over to CNSI to see it (though it's no longer on display). Since I saw it at the beginning of the quarter, it was a good introduction to to how art could be used to bring awareness to important medical and scientific issues.
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| Proof of attendance - Picture with the artist! |
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