Des Moines Register
01-14-07
What if science goes awry?
Art explores moral perplexities resulting from genetic engineering and stem cell
research
By MICHAEL MORAIN
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
Remember the Furby? The cuddly stuffed animal with the plush fur and
oversized ears?
Well, picture that. Only with fangs. And scaly plates of armor.
And hairless patches of skin dotted with moles.
That could describe "Bodyguard," one of several hyperrealistic sculptures in
Australian artist Patricia Piccinini's show, "Hug," which opens Friday at the Des
Moines Art Center Downtown.
The show, which includes drawings, photos and video-based work in addition to
sculptures of strange imaginary creatures, is the artist's first solo museum
exhibition in the United States.
Piccinini, who was born in Sierra Leone in 1965 and studied in Italy before
settling in Australia and now New York, burst onto the international contemporary
art scene in 2003 at a festival in Venice, Italy. Her work explores murky questions
about genetic engineering, stem cell research and the relationship between
humans and the animals we create for our own purposes.
Take "Bodyguard," for example. Piccinini sculpted the critter out of silicone, fur
and acrylic resin, but it looks alive enough to pounce.
If it were any more realistic, wrote one critic in New York, it would emit a scent.
At first glance, the lifelike details make it seem mildly alarming, evoking some
kind of freakish love child of an opossum and E.T. But there's more to it.
Piccinini presents the animal as one of "nature's little helpers," an imaginary
beast scientists might develop to save a (real) endangered bird, the Helmeted
Honeyeater.
The ugly brown horns on the Bodyguard's chin could scratch tree bark, allowing
the birds easier access to the sticky sap that provides the bulk of their diet.
With the sculpture, Piccinini pokes into issues about what happens if - or when humans end up doing the wrong things for the right reasons.
With scientists' new-found knack for splicing genes and manipulating DNA,
nobody knows exactly how today's breakthroughs could affect tomorrow's world.
"We're very susceptible and easily seduced by the idea of a quick technological
fix," she said.
In the case of the Helmeted Honeyeater, an indigenous Australian species
whose population dipped to a low of 50 birds in 1990, a relatively simple solution
- like replanting forests or limiting urban sprawl - might work better than a newfangled, bioengineered Bodyguard.
Piccinini suggests, however, that it's more exciting to fix problems using the latest
scientific discoveries, and the pull of technological promise is even stronger when
the problems that need fixing concern the lives of humans.
More than 80,000 Americans, for example, are waiting for organ transplants.
More than a dozen die every day because of a shortage of available organs.
To help, scientists hope to develop a breed of cloned pigs that may, some day,
become organ donors for humans.
Researchers at the University of Missouri managed to remove and manipulate
two of the 40,000 genes in a group of pigs so their organs wouldn't be detected and rejected - by a human immune system.
The first and most famous of the so-called "stealth pigs" was named Goldie. In
2003, she left her laboratory in Missouri and was shipped to Massachusetts.
"Goldie made the ultimate sacrifice for science," said Randall Prather, one of the
researchers at the University of Missouri. "Her organs went into baboons."
So here's where Piccinini comes in. Although she insists her work doesn't imply
any kind of moral judgment about research - "my mother was ill for over a decade
and then she died, so I do believe in medicine," she said - she wonders about the
unknown repercussions that might occur in the future.
To illustrate her point, Piccinini sculpted "Young Family" from the same materials
as the "Bodyguard." The parent, though, has the weary look of a sow nursing
several piglets. Her legs are disturbingly human.
"This particular creature has given birth. She's a mother," said Piccinini, who has
a son who's almost 2 years old and another on the way.
"So not only are we interested in the sentience of this creature - how much she
understands of what's going on about her life and her situation - but we're also
interested in what she feels about her children. And we can't control that. We
can't say, 'Don't love your kids. They're going to be cut up,' " Piccinini said.
In the case of little Goldie and her fellow pigs, it's still too early to transplant their
organs into humans, but Iowa State University microbiology professor D.L.
"Hank" Harris expects doctors to start transplanting insulin-producing pancreatic
tissue from pigs to humans within two to four years.
"There's a terrific crisis," said Harris, a consultant for a Minnesota firm that is
leading some of the research. "People are dying every day who don't get a
human organ. This would save thousands of lives."
Harris said that if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration can approve the sale of
products like meat and milk from cloned animals, which it did about three weeks
ago, officials should also allow pig-to-human organ transplants.
"If pig organs were ever used to save a life, it would affect just one human rather
that the entire food supply," he said.
OK, but what is our responsibility to the animals we create? asks Piccinini. What
are their rights? What do we owe them? The distinction between pigs bred for
organ transplants and pigs bred for pork chops may be slight, but it's worth
pondering.
Reporter Michael Morain can be reached at (515) 286-2559 or
mmorain@dmreg.com