Week 6 | BioTech + Art
I really enjoyed learning about this week's topic, the relationship between BioTech and Art. Prior to this course, I never thought there was a relationship between these two, and I always thought that they were so different and that they wouldn’t share any common ground. At first, it was a bit hard for me to understand the reading material for this week, but the material that really helped me was the lectures and especially the video about Joe Davis “Scientist? Artist. Pirate! Who is Joe Davis?”. I absolutely loved watching this video because I found Joe Davis to be so captivating and great at explaining the relationship between BioTech and Art!
Joe Davis is a man who goes into science labs and works directly with scientists, and he uses these findings in both scientific and artistic ways. Joe Davis believes that art helps science understand itself, and when he said this it really made me think and it really helped me understand this week's material. I was so incredibly blown away when I learned that Joe Davis had no scientific credibility, yet he was working with scientists from Harvard. It really goes to show how far someone can go when they are passionate and driven.
[Figure 2.] Joe Davis Art
Joe Davis even invented various DNA programming languages! He is in my opinion, the most amazing example of someone who is both an artist and a scientist. He is an example of how someone can think in artistic and scientific ways, and through this way of thinking someone can make amazing scientific discoveries and captivating art. I also really enjoyed hearing Joe Davis’ outlook on life, and how we should all strive to have a balance between our work and our life. He argues that life is meaningless without having adventures, and I think that his life is a great example of balancing hard work and a great life.
Text Sources:
CellPressNews. “Bioart: An Introduction.” EurekAlert!,
www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/666865. Accessed 10 May 2023.
“Joe Davis.” Joe Davis | Church Lab Members,
physiogn.hms.harvard.edu/church-lab-member/joe-davis. Accessed 10 May 2023.
“Joe Davis.” Mediamatic, www.mediamatic.net/en/page/89158/joe-davis. Accessed 10 May
2023.
“Joe Davis: In Search of Paradoxes.” Ars Electronica Blog,
ars.electronica.art/aeblog/en/2021/11/22/joe-davis-paradoxes/. Accessed 10 May 2023.
“Scientist? Artist. Pirate! Who Is Joe Davis?” YouTube, 10 Sept. 2015,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GkZt00Qics.
Image Sources:
[Figure 1.] “Joe Davis: In Search of Paradoxes.” Ars Electronica Blog, ars.electronica.art/aeblog/en/2021/11/22/joe-davis-paradoxes/. Accessed 10 May 2023.
[Figure 2.] “Career and Biographical Information about the Painter Joe Davis.” Joe Davis Artist, www.delrayart.com/joe-davis. Accessed 10 May 2023.
[Figure 3.] Nadis, Steve. “Creating Art from Microbes and Molecules.” Discover Magazine, 12 Nov. 2019, www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/creating-art-from-microbes-and-molecules.
I loved your takeaways from this weeks content about work/life balance! I agree that being able to fuse your job and your passion is so important and Joe Davis is such a great example of someone who had accomplished that! I also really love the second image you inserted of Joe Davis' art work. It is so beautiful!
ReplyDeleteHello Bailey,
ReplyDeleteI thoroughly enjoyed reading your blog about artist-scientist Joe Davis. I agree that his ability to make such a profound impact in the science and art worlds without having any formal scientific credibility is an amazing achievement that I would argue shows the power of artistic creativity. In the field of biotechnology, this creativity seems especially important as the potential for invention and discovery is limited only by human creativity. However, with such power of expression comes the risk of misuse. For example, the development of "superbabies" that are born with specified characteristics chosen by wealthy parents would only further exacerbate the issues of inequality and erasure of cultures. For me creativity in the aspect of biotechnology should hold similar principles to the medical field. To be there to help and to not harm. However, issues are rarely so two dimensional and there are all sorts of complications or exceptions.
Hi Bailey, thank you for sharing your thoughts about this week's material! I analyzed a different side of the subject in my post so I really enjoyed reading your post about Joe Davis and some of what he has contributed to science and art. I too had never really thought about biotechnology being an art form and certainly had never considered artists being involved in science or medical labs. I really liked the images you chose to include: two different sides of Joe Davis in addition to the beautiful image in the middle which I really loved. I also really loved the quote you included that says "art helps science understand itself". I thought it was quite poetic and a very good summary of all that we are learning in this course. Overall I really enjoyed your post this week and look forward to reading the rest of your posts throughout the quarter!
ReplyDeleteHi Bailey, thank you for such an insightful blog post! I really enjoyed that you both explained Joe Davis's contributions to art and science but also who he was as a person. I really loved the piece of art that you chose to include to help the readers really understand his "look" and what type of art he enjoyed. Great work!
ReplyDelete