ADAM ZARETSKY: “On Mutaphobia” Bio Art Workshop | Art + Activism

10 January 2008
EDA + CNSI, UCLA ART|SCI Center

Winter Art + Activism Lecture series begins with Adam Zaretsky who will lead a biotech workshop

Lecture "On Mutaphobia" by Adam Zaretsky
4:00pm EDA(Eli Broad Arts center)
6:00pm, BioArt workshop, CNSI Pico Lab.

Adam Zaretsky is a Vivoartist working in Biology and Art Wet Lab Practice. This involves biological lab immersion as a process towards inspired artistic projects. His personal research interests revolve around life, living systems, exploration into the mysteries of life and interrogating varied cultural definitions that stratify life's popular categorizations. He also focuses on legal, ethical and social implications of some of the newer biotechnological materials and methods: Molecular Biology, ART [Assisted Reproductive Technology] and Transgenic Protocols. Zaretsky also teaches Vivoarts: Ecology, Biotechnology, Non-human Relations, Live Art and Gastronomy. A major focus is on artistic uses and the social implications of molecular biology, tissue culture, genomics and developmental biology. Adam Zaretsky has been published in Nature Magazine, Red Herring, Leonardo, The Washington Post and Johnny's Unstoppable Bathroom Reader. He has spoken at Harvard, NYU, CAA and SCIARC.

-- While working in an MIT lab, Adam Zaretsky once spent two days playing a recording of the hits of singer Engelbert Humperdinck to a petri dish full of E. coli bacteria. The organisms’ antibiotic production increased, and he concluded that humans aren’t the only clusters of cells agitated by the continual “loud, awful lounge music.” He dubbed it “the Humperdinck effect.”