Genesis, Analysis, Code, Playing Games and Chaos – these are the five dramatic focal points of this exhibition. They connect and combine scientific and artistic aspects of genetics and creation in a dramatically designed presentation of paintings, interactive installations, light installations, video projections, cartoons, photographs and sculptures by international artists. The exhibition featured artworks by, Jean Arp, Aziz & Cucher, Joseph Beuys, Christine Borland, Jaq Chartier, Agnes Denes, Mark Dion, Charles & Ray Eames, Mark Francis, Herbert W. Franke, David Fried, Fritz Glarner, Antony Gormley, Thomas Grünfeld, Mona Hatoum, Georg Herold, Floris Kaayk, Eduardo Kac, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee , Thomas Kovachevich, Sol LeWitt, Aaron Marcus, Larry Miller, Vera Molnar, Piet Mondrian, Frieder Nake, Bruce Nauman, Georg Nees, Michel Paysant, Marc Quinn, Dieter Roth, Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau, Tomas Schmit, Lillian Schwartz, Karl Sims, Rudolf Steiner, Koen Vanmechelen, Woody & Steina Vasulka According to Curator, Fabienne Eggelhöfer, these heterogeneous exhibits were designed to convey the most significant research results of the 20th and 21st centuries, placing them in an artistic context that confirms this issue's relevance to society, its wide emotional spectrum and its decade-long, unchanging political importance. Genesis – The Art of Creation was an international exhibition located at the prestigious PAUL KLEE MUSEUM in Bern, Switzerland and curated in the ethos of interdisciplinary artistic expression. The exhibition theme described parallel developments and interactions in artistic and scientific methodologies. ]]> tag:www.kathleenrogers.co.uk,2006://1.52 2006-12-11T21:51:40Z 2007-05-05T17:48:39Z

I'm working on a recording project that explores the irregular heart beat in transgenic zebrafish. Measurements of electrical activity of different chambers and areas of the living heart are made to resemble maps. In developmental genetics the zebrafish genes are...

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Work in progress based on initial meetings with researchers at the Netherlands Royal Academy of Arts and Science, Hubrecht Developmental Biology Lab, Utrecht University. From my Project Notebooks: Genetic Sculpture The themes of this project focus on the signals of...

Hubrecht Developmental Biology Lab, Utrecht University. From my Project Notebooks: Genetic Sculpture The themes of this project focus on the signals of life and death and how these are built into the biochemical instructions of the living cell. Installation artworks are planned that will present and explore how the architecture of the body is genetically determined based on living heart morphogenesis and the prolonging of the limbo state.

This is work in progress. A still from a time-lapse video of Oyster Mushrooms Pleurotus Ostreatus

Conserved Topography Genes that disrupt pathways associated with cytoskeleton, cell adhesion or formation of a highly organised extracellular matrix during organ formation have the potential of perturbing normal heart looping as well as the formation of a single heart tube. In addition, if there are perturbations resulting in endocardial changes and the dorsal mesocardium, these will also have adverse effects on looping. What causes cells to line up and make a heart tube ? How are pre-cardiac cells at the molecular level identified? In exploring the embryonic stages leading from early gastrulation to the formation of a tubular heart the work will evoke the implications of genetic metaphors and allow spectators to remotely view the signals of death in the genesis of life.

Heart cross section

Notebook Drawings

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Zebrafish facility at the Hubrecht Developmental Biology Laboratory, Utrecht University The Perishable Soft Image Genes that control other genes have nucleotide seqeunces that are conserved accross the whole animal kingdom. Repeated functions, organizers and zones are transplanted into developing...

Zebrafish facility at the Hubrecht Developmental Biology Laboratory, Utrecht University

The Perishable Soft Image Genes that control other genes have nucleotide seqeunces that are conserved accross the whole animal kingdom. Repeated functions, organizers and zones are transplanted into developing embryonic fish to effect a developmental cascade. The result is mutant individuals in which one body part is replaced by another. Chiasm A visible x shaped structure formed by homologous chromatids in prophase of meisos and which represents the site of crossing over and exchange of segments of DNA between homologous chromatids (recombination) by the mechanism of breakage and reunion.

The more biologists learn about genes, the less sure they seem to become of what a gene really is. Knowledge about the structure and function of the gene abounds, but also, the gene has become curiously intangible. Relating the gene as a molecular biological unit to the gene as Mendelian factor produces internal inconsistencies; but genes have been deeply illusive entities even with the traditional Mendelian framework. Peter Beurton, Raphael Falk, Hans-Jorg-Rheinberger The Concept of the Gene in Development and Evolution

Time Insights into biological phenomena made by molecular geneticists show biological changes in the structure of DNA over time and detail what happens to a molecular structure and gene expression in the period of one mitosis to the next. Chromosomes condense during mitosis and through the motion of intermingling and disentanglement become separate entities. There is a time based "betwixt and between" state in this biochemical condensation that remains unfathomable. In molecular genetics hybrid forms of "betwixt and between" are collected and stored. Potential states of being that are neither fully alive, biologically dead nor naturally self-regulating can be sustained experimentally is a state of permanent existence. Molecular geneticists working on the extreme limits of gene regulation and expression in gene therapy and retro viral research constantly evolve and apply models of this "betwixt and between" state. The chirality, handedness and silencing of genes and proteins can be reworked and re-mapped and provide science with an emergent and phenomenological model of life that correspondingly provides the subtle interactions, cell dynamics and vectors of death.

Originally, epigenetics referred to the study of the way genes and their products bring the phenotype into being. Today, it is primarily concerned with the mechanisms through which cells become committed to a particular form or function and through which that functional or structural state is then transmitted in cell lineages. In particular, recognizing that there are epigenetic inheritance systems through which non-DNA variations can be transmitted in cell and organismal lineages. Eva Jablonka and Marion J. Lamb Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (2002)

Signal Cascade In genomic research the epigenetic vectors of death can be reworked to provide images and physical models of cell migration and differentiation. My artistic research is to understand what science knows about genetic transcription and to address what can be registered as occurring during the morphogenesis of a living organism. When biophysicists predict and provide a three dimensional structure of a protein molecule they also generate more extravagant visual complexity in the living cell. A pool of cells under a light microscope, seen as a swarming colony, has infinite dimensionality and scale. Ancestral affinities are fluidic. The appearance of spontaneous correlative phenomena at the level of RNA are visualised using different conceptual and optical tools and techniques.]]> tag:www.kathleenrogers.co.uk,2006://1.45 2006-10-25T13:45:12Z 2007-05-05T17:48:39Z

Zebrafish facility at the Hubrecht Developmental Biology Laboratory, Utrecht University The transparency and motion of the fish coalesce and suggest the change, migration and transcription of bases of DNA Biotic Life In genetic studies, the zebrafish is perceived as a...

Zebrafish facility at the Hubrecht Developmental Biology Laboratory, Utrecht University

The transparency and motion of the fish coalesce and suggest the change, migration and transcription of bases of DNA

Biotic Life In genetic studies, the zebrafish is perceived as a kind of ensemble of characteristics. Genetic point mutations, deletions and insertions are used to determine phenotypic consequences. The cutting and tearing apart of the zebrafish at the molecular level and observing the regrowth of its body is replayed and replayed as a way of learning and harnessing it's immune system. As the fish are bred their immune defences are both encouraged by the duty of care provided by technicians and tested to the limit by forced mutations. As living entities they have a twilight biotic existence that is easily interrupted and dependent on scientific interpretation. A surreal counterpart of their functionality as genetic models is their imagined transformation into spectral and mirror images of potential humans. Zebrafish Danio Rerio is part of a pantheon of model organisms used to study vertebrate development. Zebrafish are used as a genetic model system because they are small, breed quickly and are inexpensive to maintain in large numbers. These characteristics make the zebrafish useful for classical genetic analysis. Classical genetics refers to the search for mutations that distort specific biological events without foreknowledge of the genes or gene involved. Breeding Zebrafish mating pairs yield hundreds of embryos at weekly intervals. Their mating habits are diurnal, initiated by light. Zebrafish embryos are obtained by placing an adult male and female together in a breeding cage in the evening. Fertilisation occurs externally. Male and female gametes are released into the water and the activated sperm must quickly encounter and fertilise the eggs. The fertilised eggs fall through a mesh at the bottom of the tank. The eggs are then collected and raised in Petri dishes in a temperature-controlled incubator and are accessible for observation and manipulation throughout embryonic development. The timing of developmental events is affected by temperature. Higher and lower temperatures have an effect on the speed of development. The striking transparency of the embryos facilitates the observation of morphological structures in vivo without the need for fixing and staining. The breeding tanks transform the fish into novel living artefacts. Mutagenesis and Transplantation Chimeras Green Fluorescent Protein probes reduce the zebrafish to a series of macabre abstractions. Migrating cells are labelled. Genes are silenced and malformations witnessed. Faulty Genes There are many mutations affecting cardiac morphogenesis in zebrafish and many of these have been identified according to specific genes. Fate Maps Absent ventricle, randomised heart looping, no valves, no heart beat, silent atrium, large heart, both chambers beat weakly, reduced heart tissue, isolated cell contraction, spasmodic beat, cardia bifida, no endocardium. ]]>