re: LIFESCIENCE: poor vision

[Lubica=Lacinova%IPT%MRI@vines.ipt.med.tu-muenchen.de]

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ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL 99
LIFESCIENCE
Linz, Austria, September 04 - 09
http://www.aec.at/lifescience
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From: "Prof. Dr. Birgit Richard"

>my favorite imagined action would be to buy lots of sheep and put them
>on a large public place with the statement this is the first artistic
>mass cloning. i cloned all these dollys by myself.
>no one could proove immediately that it could not be possible that i
>cloned this sheep. but it would make people start a discussion about
>visibility.
>birgit richard

I am afraid this would somehow miss the point. Perhaps you know
that Dolly was one successful clone out of almost 300 "starting oocytes".
Everyone who has slightest idea about this technology would know that you 
just could not clone more than 3-5 sheeps at a time.

Two years ago many Swiss artist joined civic activists in campaign before
referendum which asked for certain restraints in gene technologies. 
Referendum failed, Swiss citizens voted against such restraints. It is not
that there are no public discussions, it is that there are few voices
questioning gene technologies with certain expertise. I am afraid it damages 
the cause - happening with sheeps could be very easily laughed out. And it 
would add an argument in favor of cloning: "see, no serious arguments could 
be raised, just childish games".

Further, time to discuss cloned sheep is over. Last year mice were
successfully cloned and to do that, scientist overcome constraints which were 
necessary to overcome if human should be cloned (sheep technology
was not good enough to clone humans) - no public discussion about that.

By the way, importance of Dolly was in a fact that it was a clone
of adult animal - embryonal cloning is well known and well established
technique for a while. Nevertheless, clones of adult animals are aging 
somehow too fast or die unexpectedly making the technique vulnerable and 
unreliable.

Still, in my view, cloned sheep is not problem which needs to be
addressed right now. What need to be addressed, is the role of human and
its position within nature. The whole project of speeding up evolution by
means of creating new species may be really dangerous - including transgenic 
art.

Luba Lacinova
e-dress  lacinova@ipt.med.tu-muenchen.de

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