Victimless Leather
Encyclopedia
Victimless Leather – a prototype of a stitch-less jacket, grown in a technoscientific "body".
This is a sub-project of the Tissue Culture & Art Project where the artists are growing a leather
jacket without killing any animals. Growing the victimless leather problematizes the concept of garment by making it semi-living. This artistic grown garment confronts people with the moral implications of wearing parts of dead animals for protective and aesthetic reasons and confronts notions of relationships with manipulated living systems.
website explains what it is, "an artistic laboratory dedicated to the research, learning, critique and hands-on engagement with the life sciences.". The artists work with tissue, constructing and growing complex organisms that can live outside the body, making the new objects semi-living. Their projects are meant to question life, identity and the relationship between humans and other living beings and environments. They are also interested in the ethics around partial life and the possibilities around this type of technology in the future.
NoArk – NoArk is a collection of cells and tissue from many different organisms, growing together inside a "vessel", a reference to Noah's Ark
. The project website states that NoArk is "a tangible as well as symbolic ‘craft’ for observing and understanding a biology that combines the familiar with the other".
Worry Dolls – Seven modern versions of the Guatemalan Worry doll
were hand-crafted of degradable polymers and surgical sutures and seeded with skin, muscle and bone tissue. The tissue was then allowed to grow inside a bioreactor, replacing the polymers as it degrades, thus creating seven semi-living dolls.
Disembodied Cuisine – Along with Victimless Leather, this is part of the "Victimless Utopia". The idea for this project was to take cells from a frog and grow them into something possible to eat, displaying it next to the still living frog the food came from. This problemetizes the whole meat industry – how we kill animals to eat them. Growing tissue outside of the body of the animal is a way to "make" meat while the animal stays healthy and living.
Extra Ear – ¼ Scale – Using human tissue, a quarter-scale replica of artist Stelarc
's ear was grown. The project wanted to confront the cultural perceptions of life now that we are able to manipulate living systems, and also discuss the notions of the wholeness of the body.
The Pig Wings Project – This project base it's ideas on xenotransplantation
and genetically modifing pigs so their organs can be transplanted to humans. The artists used tissue engineering and stem cell technologies to grow pig bone tissue, forming three different sets of wings. One set shaped as bat wings ("evil"), one as bird wings ("good") and one as pterosaurs wings ("neutral").
The intention to grow artificial leather without killing an animal is meant as a contribution to a cultural discussion between art, science and society. Making this jacket presents a possibility of wearing leather that is not part of a dead animal. The projects are presented in Workshops and exhibitions throughout the world to address ethical questions related to bioscience
and technology
. The artists want the project to be seen in this cultural context, not a commercial one.
Their intention is not to create a consumer product, but to offer a starting point for the cultural discussion points mentioned above. As with most of the TC&A projects the artists are concerned with the relationship between humans and other living systems, both natural and scientific made or manipulated.
To create the victimless leather, the team needed an artificial environment where semi-living entities are grown, so it is grown inside a bioreactor that acts as a surrogate body. The bioreactor used in this project was custom made, based on an organ perfusion pump designed by Alexis Carrel
and Charles Lindbergh
. It has an automatic dripping system which feeds the cells. The artists assumed that when the polymer degraded, an integrated jacket would appear. The resulting jacket was tiny, about 2 inches high and 1,4 inches wide and would just fit a mouse.
To idealize the "victimless" of the jacket, immortalized cell lines or cells that divide and multiply forever once they are removed from an animal or human host forming a renewable resource, have been used in the project. The 3T3 mouse cells all come from a mouse who lived in the 1970s.
From a list of selected TC&A exhibitions.
, USA. http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/index.html http://www.moma.org/ February 24 – May 12, 2008 The project was scheduled to grow continuously until May 12 when the exhibition ended. There were some problems though, when the leather started expanding too quickly, clogging tubes inside the bioreactor. The exhibition leader therefore decided to unplug the project before the end of the exhibition – in a way, killing it.
, Finland
in 1967, and is currently residing in Perth
, Australia
where he has been employeed at the University of Western Australia since 1996. He works as an artistic director of SymbioticA, which he is also co-founder of. He is founder of the Tissue Culture & Art Project. From 2000–2001 he was a Research Fellow at the Tissue Engineering and Organ Fabrication Laboratory at Harvard Medical School
. He has also worked with numerous other bio-medical laboratories in several different countries.
, UK in 1970, and is currently residing in Perth
, Australia
. Since 1996 she has been employed at the University of Western Australia, where she also did her PhD
titled "Growing Semi-Living Art" under the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts http://www.alva.uwa.edu.au/. Zurr specialises in video production and biological and digital imaging. She works as an assistant professor and academic coordinator at SymbioticA and is co-founder of the Tissue Culture & Art Project. From 2000–2001 she was a research fellow at the Tissue Engineering and Organ Fabrication Laboratory at Harvard Medical School
.
strongly opposed hunting of animals for vanity and the commercial purpose of the skin. From an indigenous point of view the context must be seen different. An inuit
hunts the seal
and uses the whole body of the animal as a basic resource for his survival.
Similar to ethics like this, is the interest for artificial meat production due to reactions against the livestock sector because of health and environmental problems. A 2006 UN Food and Agriculture Organization FAO report pointed out the livestock sector as one of the most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems like soil degradation and water pollution. And because of methane it spews out more greenhouse gases into the athmosphere than transortation.
This is a sub-project of the Tissue Culture & Art Project where the artists are growing a leather
Leather
Leather is a durable and flexible material created via the tanning of putrescible animal rawhide and skin, primarily cattlehide. It can be produced through different manufacturing processes, ranging from cottage industry to heavy industry.-Forms:...
jacket without killing any animals. Growing the victimless leather problematizes the concept of garment by making it semi-living. This artistic grown garment confronts people with the moral implications of wearing parts of dead animals for protective and aesthetic reasons and confronts notions of relationships with manipulated living systems.
Tissue Culture & Art Project
The SymbioticASymbiotica
' is an artistic laboratory dedicated to the research, learning and critique of life sciences. Located within the at The University of Western Australia, it is the first research laboratory of its kind, in that it enables artists to engage in wet biology practices in a biological science...
website explains what it is, "an artistic laboratory dedicated to the research, learning, critique and hands-on engagement with the life sciences.". The artists work with tissue, constructing and growing complex organisms that can live outside the body, making the new objects semi-living. Their projects are meant to question life, identity and the relationship between humans and other living beings and environments. They are also interested in the ethics around partial life and the possibilities around this type of technology in the future.
Other projects
These are some of the sub-projects that are also part of the TC&A project, in addition to Victimless Leather:NoArk – NoArk is a collection of cells and tissue from many different organisms, growing together inside a "vessel", a reference to Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark is a vessel appearing in the Book of Genesis and the Quran . These narratives describe the construction of the ark by Noah at God's command to save himself, his family, and the world's animals from the worldwide deluge of the Great Flood.In the narrative of the ark, God sees the...
. The project website states that NoArk is "a tangible as well as symbolic ‘craft’ for observing and understanding a biology that combines the familiar with the other".
Worry Dolls – Seven modern versions of the Guatemalan Worry doll
Worry doll
Worry dolls , or trouble dolls, are very small and colorful dolls traditionally made in Guatemala. A person who cannot sleep due to worrying can express their worries to a doll and place it under their pillow before going to sleep...
were hand-crafted of degradable polymers and surgical sutures and seeded with skin, muscle and bone tissue. The tissue was then allowed to grow inside a bioreactor, replacing the polymers as it degrades, thus creating seven semi-living dolls.
Disembodied Cuisine – Along with Victimless Leather, this is part of the "Victimless Utopia". The idea for this project was to take cells from a frog and grow them into something possible to eat, displaying it next to the still living frog the food came from. This problemetizes the whole meat industry – how we kill animals to eat them. Growing tissue outside of the body of the animal is a way to "make" meat while the animal stays healthy and living.
Extra Ear – ¼ Scale – Using human tissue, a quarter-scale replica of artist Stelarc
Stelarc
Stelarc is a Cypriot-Australian performance artist whose works focuses heavily on extending the capabilities of the human body. As such, most of his pieces are centred around his concept that the human body is obsolete...
's ear was grown. The project wanted to confront the cultural perceptions of life now that we are able to manipulate living systems, and also discuss the notions of the wholeness of the body.
The Pig Wings Project – This project base it's ideas on xenotransplantation
Xenotransplantation
Xenotransplantation , is the transplantation of living cells, tissues or organs from one species to another. Such cells, tissues or organs are called xenografts or xenotransplants...
and genetically modifing pigs so their organs can be transplanted to humans. The artists used tissue engineering and stem cell technologies to grow pig bone tissue, forming three different sets of wings. One set shaped as bat wings ("evil"), one as bird wings ("good") and one as pterosaurs wings ("neutral").
The Idea
An aim for the "Victimless Leather" project is to explore and provoke scientific truths, using conceptual art projects to encourage better understanding of cultural ideas around scientific knowledge. The project website point out how clothing has always been used to protect the fragile skin of humans, but lately have evolved into a fabricated object used as a tool to show one's identity. Based on this, clothing can be explored as a tangible example of the relationship between humans and others, and how humans treat others. As the artists put it: "This particular project will deconstruct our cultural meaning of clothes as a second skin by materialising it and displaying it as an art object."The intention to grow artificial leather without killing an animal is meant as a contribution to a cultural discussion between art, science and society. Making this jacket presents a possibility of wearing leather that is not part of a dead animal. The projects are presented in Workshops and exhibitions throughout the world to address ethical questions related to bioscience
BioScience
BioScience is a peer-reviewed monthly sometimes daily scientific journal that is published by the American Institute of Biological Sciences . The content is written and edited for accessibility to researchers, educators, and students alike...
and technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
. The artists want the project to be seen in this cultural context, not a commercial one.
Their intention is not to create a consumer product, but to offer a starting point for the cultural discussion points mentioned above. As with most of the TC&A projects the artists are concerned with the relationship between humans and other living systems, both natural and scientific made or manipulated.
The Victimless Leather project
]Growing the jacket
The artists wanted to make a leather-like material using living tissue, and ended up making it in the shape of a stich-less jacket. The artists based the jacket on a biodegradable polymer, coated it with 3T3 mouse cells to form connective tissue and topped it up with human bone cells in order to create a stronger skin layer.To create the victimless leather, the team needed an artificial environment where semi-living entities are grown, so it is grown inside a bioreactor that acts as a surrogate body. The bioreactor used in this project was custom made, based on an organ perfusion pump designed by Alexis Carrel
Alexis Carrel
Alexis Carrel was a French surgeon and biologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1912 for pioneering vascular suturing techniques. He invented the first perfusion pump with Charles A. Lindbergh opening the way to organ transplantation...
and Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.Lindbergh, a 25-year-old U.S...
. It has an automatic dripping system which feeds the cells. The artists assumed that when the polymer degraded, an integrated jacket would appear. The resulting jacket was tiny, about 2 inches high and 1,4 inches wide and would just fit a mouse.
To idealize the "victimless" of the jacket, immortalized cell lines or cells that divide and multiply forever once they are removed from an animal or human host forming a renewable resource, have been used in the project. The 3T3 mouse cells all come from a mouse who lived in the 1970s.
Research and development
The research and development of “Victimless Leather” has been conducted in SymbioticA: the Art and Science Collaborative Research Laboratory, School of Anatomy and Human Biology at the University of Western Australia and in consultation with Professor Arunasalam Dharmarajan from the School of Anatomy and Human Biology as well as Verigen, a Perth based company that specializes in tissue engineered cartilage for clinical applications. Western Australia state made the investment in the project through ArtsWa in Association with the Lotteries Commission.Exhibitions
| Year | Location | Venue | About |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Tokyo, Japan | Mori Museum | Victimless Leather as part of the exhibition "Medicine and Art: Imagining a Future for Life and Love". |
| 2009 | Luxemburg | Victimless Leather. Part of the exhibition "Sk-interface". | |
| 2008 | Buffalo, USA | CEPA Gallery | NoArk II and Victimless Leather. |
| 2008 | The Netherlands | The National Glass Museum | Victimless Leather. Part of the exhibition "SkinDeep". |
| 2008 | Liverpool, UK | Victimless Leather. Part of the exhibition "Sk-interface". | |
| 2008 | New York, USA | MoMA | Victimless Leather. Part of the exhibition “Design and the Elastic Mind” |
| 2007 | UK | Tyne & Wear Museum | Victimless Leather. Part of the exhibition "Our Cyborg Future?". |
| 2006 | Toronto, Canada | Ontario Science Centre | Victimless Leather. |
| 2004 | Perth, Australia | John Curtin Gallery | Victimless Leather. Part of the exhibition "The Space Between". |
From a list of selected TC&A exhibitions.
Killing the Jacket
The victimless leather was featured in the exhibition “Design and the Elastic Mind” at The Museum of Modern Art in New YorkNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, USA. http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/index.html http://www.moma.org/ February 24 – May 12, 2008 The project was scheduled to grow continuously until May 12 when the exhibition ended. There were some problems though, when the leather started expanding too quickly, clogging tubes inside the bioreactor. The exhibition leader therefore decided to unplug the project before the end of the exhibition – in a way, killing it.
Response
Because the artificial leather is made semi-living, the project might be seen as speculative and provocative to some people – questioning if it is better to kill semi-living beings rather than living beings. "One of the most common and somewhat surprising comments we heard was that people were disturbed by our ethics of using living cells to grow living fabric, while the use of leather obtained from animals seems to be accepted without any concern for the well-being of the animals from which the skin has been removed." artist Ionat Zurr uttered after showing the jacket to the public on "The Space Between" exhibition in Australia.Oron Catts
Oron Catts was born in HelsinkiHelsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
, Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
in 1967, and is currently residing in Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
where he has been employeed at the University of Western Australia since 1996. He works as an artistic director of SymbioticA, which he is also co-founder of. He is founder of the Tissue Culture & Art Project. From 2000–2001 he was a Research Fellow at the Tissue Engineering and Organ Fabrication Laboratory at Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....
. He has also worked with numerous other bio-medical laboratories in several different countries.
Ionat Zurr
Ionat Zurr was born in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, UK in 1970, and is currently residing in Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Since 1996 she has been employed at the University of Western Australia, where she also did her PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
titled "Growing Semi-Living Art" under the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts http://www.alva.uwa.edu.au/. Zurr specialises in video production and biological and digital imaging. She works as an assistant professor and academic coordinator at SymbioticA and is co-founder of the Tissue Culture & Art Project. From 2000–2001 she was a research fellow at the Tissue Engineering and Organ Fabrication Laboratory at Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....
.
Related work and ideas
The project also focuses on human consumption, highlighting that there are victims on every level of it, and that the boundaries between harm and benefit often are blurred. The French actress Brigitte BardotBrigitte Bardot
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot is a French former fashion model, actress, singer and animal rights activist. She was one of the best-known sex-symbols of the 1960s.In her early life, Bardot was an aspiring ballet dancer...
strongly opposed hunting of animals for vanity and the commercial purpose of the skin. From an indigenous point of view the context must be seen different. An inuit
Inuit
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
hunts the seal
Pinniped
Pinnipeds or fin-footed mammals are a widely distributed and diverse group of semiaquatic marine mammals comprising the families Odobenidae , Otariidae , and Phocidae .-Overview: Pinnipeds are typically sleek-bodied and barrel-shaped...
and uses the whole body of the animal as a basic resource for his survival.
Similar to ethics like this, is the interest for artificial meat production due to reactions against the livestock sector because of health and environmental problems. A 2006 UN Food and Agriculture Organization FAO report pointed out the livestock sector as one of the most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems like soil degradation and water pollution. And because of methane it spews out more greenhouse gases into the athmosphere than transortation.
See also
- SymbioticASymbiotica' is an artistic laboratory dedicated to the research, learning and critique of life sciences. Located within the at The University of Western Australia, it is the first research laboratory of its kind, in that it enables artists to engage in wet biology practices in a biological science...
- BioArtBioArtBioArt is an art practice where humans work with live tissues, bacteria, living organisms, and life processes. Using scientific processes such as biotechnology the artworks are produced in laboratories, galleries, or artists' studios...
- In vitro meatIn vitro meatIn vitro meat, also known as cultured meat, is an animal flesh product that has never been part of a complete, living animal.This form of meat has been described, sometimes derisively, as "laboratory-grown" meat. In vitro meat should not be confused with imitation meat, which is a vegetarian food...
- Life sciencesLife sciencesThe life sciences comprise the fields of science that involve the scientific study of living organisms, like plants, animals, and human beings. While biology remains the centerpiece of the life sciences, technological advances in molecular biology and biotechnology have led to a burgeoning of...
- Cell biologyCell biologyCell biology is a scientific discipline that studies cells – their physiological properties, their structure, the organelles they contain, interactions with their environment, their life cycle, division and death. This is done both on a microscopic and molecular level...
- PETAPetaPeta can refer to:* peta-, an SI prefix denoting a factor of 1015* Peta, Greece, a town in Greece* Peta, the Pāli word for a Preta, or hungry ghost in Buddhism* Peta Wilson, an Australian actress and model* Peta Todd, English glamour model...