BioArt of the pioneer Joe Davis

CHANGED SILKWORM GENETICALLY CAN HELP CLEAN DEGRADED ENVIRONMENTS WITH HEAVY METALS

The Biennial of Digital Art, on display until March 18 at the Oi Futuro Cultural Center, in Rio de Janeiro, had among its main attractions in the first week a symposium by renowned American scientist Joe Davis, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ) and the Harvard Genetics Department. Davis, 67, after his talk, decided to contribute to the event’s permanent exhibitions before returning to the United States.

Davis’s work consists of a silkworm genetically altered by the American scientist and other associated researchers. With the alteration of DNA, the insect produces a synthetic silk that is capable of absorbing heavy metals. The idea of ​​the experiment has a social importance, in the sense of cleaning degraded environments with heavy metals thanks to the absorption potential of the silk produced. For the Biennial, Davis left a cocoon of one of the silkworms that he genetically altered in his laboratory.

Winner in 2012 of the Golden Nica Award, one of the most important awards for interactive art and digital culture in the world, Davis is a pioneer of works of art and molecular biology, such as inserting Wikipedia information in the form of genetic code in the DNA of apples. In Rio de Janeiro, he held a symposium last Tuesday, in which he explained to the public the concept of artist-scientists (hybrid artists), making a connection with the magicians of antiquity.