Silva, Luis. “Interview with Marta de Menezes.” Rhizome. Rhizome, 20 Aug. 2008. Web. 23 Aug. 2014.
http://rhizome.org/editorial/2008/aug/20/interview-with-marta-de-menezes/
Portuguese artist, Marta de Menezes, specializes in the collision between artistic and scientific worlds. Along with being an artist, she is founder of Ectopia which acts as both a laboratory and artist residency at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência in Portugal. Though her interview with Rhizome primarily deals with her plans for Ectopia, she also discusses her thoughts on integrating biotechnology into her artistic process.
Her most famous piece, “Nature?” made some question whether or not art and science should even be combined at all. The installation was comprised of live butterflies whose wing patterns had been manipulated by de Menezes and a team of scientists. The project was met with backlash and controversy, despite the fact that de Menezes had not permanently genetically modified them.
This interplay of science and art raises important ethical questions. Despite the temporary nature of the butterflies’ manipulation, was there really zero interference in nature? Is artistic purpose important enough to justify tampering with live animals/insects? What is the difference between artistic experimentation and scientific testing on animals? While I find de Menezes’s work intriguing, I’m also unsettled by its capacity for collateral damage.
