Dickey, Christopher. “I Love My Glow Bunny.” Wired. Condé Nast Digital, April 2001. Web. 6 Sept. 2014.
http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/9.04/bunny.html?pg=6&topic=&topic_set=
On December 31, 1999, a transgenic rabbit named Alba was born. Produced as an art piece by Eduardo Kac, Alba glowed green in the presence of blue light. All of this was made possible by France’s Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, which spliced fluorescent jellyfish protein into the rabbit zygote’s genes. Following the successful process, debate exploded about the concept of “transgenic art.” Additionally, a tug-of-war began between Kac and the institute over which entity deserved to keep Alba permanently.
This article raises a solid question about ownership in the collaboration between art and science. Should the artist retain ownership because of his or her initial idea, or should that belong to researchers who actually made the idea a reality? When the product of the collaboration is a living thing, this debate becomes even more complicated and emotional. Both Kac’s possessive insistence and the institute’s cold view of Alba as “rabbit number 5,256” (Dickey 2) make me uneasy.
