Following the Yellow Brick Road. . .

In the series of articles under the concept of Biocollage, I was drawn first to the need for a more public discourse regarding the scientific realm of the Human Genome Project. It is true, for me, that I am kept in the dark by the smoke and mirrors of the rhetoric surrounding science as I listen to NPR or read the New York Times about the project, I become part of the masses reading yet not completely understanding, nodding and accepting the material with consideration--I become an example of what Larsen and Milner in "Mapping the New World" explain as the bewildered "uneducated population who support and eagerly await miracles" from the "Great Totalizer of Biotech Oz." After exploring the Cell Lab with Ryan, however, I feel that the man behind the curtain was somehow exposed. By visiting the lab yesterday and hearing only a few concepts explained at my level, I feel I have somehow began traversing the divide knowing that scientist don't have all the answers, but it is instead, in the journey of a divergent exploration of the human body that is the magic.

What really helped in this new-found understanding was the visual culture to which Ryan exposed us--it was not only informational and helpful in understanding the world of cells, but also aesthetically pleasing. Watching the video of a live cell or the florescence of the GFP was natural art. What interested me in the question posed "how can a cell lab be an artist's studio" was how this natural phenomena could be considered art. Larsen and Milner proposed that science maps the body while artists map social, political and emotional implications of that, but I think there may be overlap. The question remains for me, however, how is that overlap defined.