Biocultures Manifesto

by David Morris
New Literary History Magazine, Summer 2007
(Complete article coming soon)

Artist quote: Julia Reodica, “The hymNext Project”

In BioArt, an artist utilizes emerging biotechnologies from the scientific and medical fields in the creation of an artwork. In a semi/living, preserved or documented form, presented are the complexities of ethics and aesthetics from the new art movement which can include the methods involved with its creation. In the “hymNext – Designer Hymen Project,” I incorporated my own body cells into the sculptures.

The hymen tissue cultures were a combination of my vaginal cells, rodent smooth muscle tissue and bovine collagen scaffolding grown in nutrient media. Pictured at 5 days incubation is the mixture of my body tissue and rodent tissue coexisting in the same space in vitro. My cells are in the sculptures because I wanted myself to be new art media. In each sculpture, my DNA is a personal signature. Replacement hymens confront cultural and traditional functions of the thin membrane. The act of reproducing my vaginal cells gestures toward the one-time occurrence and breakage of the biologically virginal hymen.

The hymen is neither inside nor outside the vaginal canal. In philosophy, “hymen” is a stance in between two discursive positions, without tendency to one side. In biological and philosophical modalities, I am, like the hymen, in between the artistic and scientific disciplines. The resulting art pieces are a conjuration of new symbols to encourage discussion about scientific research and body politics.