Event 1 | Kathy High: Waste Matters

About a week ago, I had the honor to visit a very interesting exhibit and meet the most down-to-earth artist. Kathy High is an interdisciplinary artist who is involved in the two cultures we have learned in class. Her works connect art to biology/ecology and aim to consider the social, political, and ethical aspects of bioscience. Her exhibit Waste Matters: You Are My Future was a peculiar and intriguing collaboration of art and science. It was both personal and educational, and I left with a few insights.

With Kathy High and her Photograph as David Bowie

As a patient with Crohn's disease, Kathy uses her knowledge in autoimmune disorders to explore the immune system and research in microbiota. The exhibit included photographs of herself as her idol David Bowie, which were finished with a humorous and personal letter to Bowie asking for his poop. I actually did not know about fecal transplantation until this exhibit! Fecal transplantation allows donors fecal matter to be placed in recipient via endoscopy procedures to replace good bacteria.

The most important pieces, I would say, would be her "Bank of Abject Objects," which were home-made stool bank prototypes with honey as the preservative. She told me she was planning to switch to raw honey and that the shape of the glass was designed to turn and mix the preservative.

Bank of Abject Objects

"The Re-mediator Series" were sketches for gut-to-soil bioremediation sculptures. These drafts symbolize the immune system as "autopoeisis" or self-maintenance.  As she said, this broccoli/intestine bench, for example, could be a prototype of benches that suck up toxins from the soil.

One of "The Re-mediator Series"

Overall, I truly enjoyed Kathy's exhibit and would recommend it to those who want to see real life examples of art and biology interaction. This experience helped me understand less obvious concepts of how medicine and technology influences art. In class, we mainly learned about it in terms of anatomy, but Kathy's works helped me think about other ways medical issues can be raised via art. For instance, I never knew much about Crohn's disease nor about research in microbiota until this exhibit. I realize that art can bring great awareness to the sciences and that itself is two cultures working together. For my project, I am now thinking of ways my invention can also help educate a certain medical or scientific issue via artistic expression.


References:

High, Kathy. "Kathy High." Waste Matters: You Are My Future. UCLA CNSI Art|Sci Gallery 5th Floor, Los Angeles. 16 Apr. 2015. Speech.

"Kathy High: Visual/media Artist, Independent Curator, Educator." Kathy High: New Media Artist: About. Web. 28 Apr. 2015. <http://kathyhigh.com/about.html>.

Medicine pt2.mov. Dr. Victoria Vesna. Youtube. Uconlineprogram, 21 Apr. 2012. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

"The Fecal Transplant Foundation." The Fecal Transplant Foundation. Web. 27 Apr. 2015. <http://thefecaltransplantfoundation.org/what-is-fecal-transplant/>.

TwoCultures part 3. Dr. Victoria Vesna. Youtube. Uconlineprogram, 2 Apr. 2012. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.