Cell Track: Mapping the Appropriation of Life Materials

v1. “Bio-Difference: The Political Ecology,” Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth, Australia, 2004.
v2. “YOUGenics3,” Betty Rymer Gallery, Art Institute of Chicago, 2004-05.

Cell Track recognizes mainstream ethical and social controversies surrounding stem cell research, but it focuses on a different area of concern. In embryonic stem cell research there is a separation between the maternal bodies that produce the ES cells, and the medical and pharmaceutical "products" derived from them. Maternal body cells and tissues like eggs, placentas, fetuses, and umbilical cord blood become the valuable "raw materials" for stem cell technologies. This development opens the way for corporate science to profit from the manipulation and control of life--by patenting and licensing DNA sequences, engineered genes, stem cell lines, transgenic organisms, and the like.

Cell Track's ultimate goal is to raise the possibility of a public embryonic stem cell bank of non-patented, non-proprietary stem cell-lines, that could be made available to amateur artists, independent scientists, and non-profit researchers conducting experimental or contestational research in and for the public domain.

[project site]