The central work in the Natural History of the Enigma series is a plantimal, a new lifeform the artist created and that he calls “Edunia,” a genetically engineered flower that is a hybrid of himself and Petunia. The Edunia expresses his DNA exclusively in its red veins.
The new flower is a Petunia strain that he invented and produced through molecular biology. It is not found in nature. The Edunia has red veins on light pink petals and a gene of his is expressed on every cell of its red veins, i.e., his gene produces a protein in the veins only. The gene was isolated and sequenced from his blood. The petal pink background, against which the red veins are seen, is evocative of his own pinkish-white skin tone. The result of this molecular manipulation is a bloom that creates the living image of human blood rushing through the veins of a flower.
Project Credits:
- Collection of Wiyu Wahono
Biography:
Eduardo Kac is internationally recognized for his telepresence and bio art. A pioneer of telecommunications art in the pre-Web ’80s, Eduardo Kac (pronounced “Katz”) emerged in the early ’90s with his radical works combining telerobotics and living organisms. His visionary integration of robotics, biology and networking explores the fluidity of subject positions in the post-digital world. His work deals with issues that range from the mythopoetics of online experience (Uirapuru) to the cultural impact of biotechnology (Genesis); from the changing condition of memory in the digital age (Time Capsule) to distributed collective agency (Teleporting an Unknown State); from the problematic notion of the “exotic” (Rara Avis) to the creation of life and evolution (GFP Bunny).
At the dawn of the twenty-first century Kac opened a new direction for contemporary art with his “transgenic art”–first with a groundbreaking piece entitled Genesis (1999), which included an “artist’s gene” he invented, and then with “GFP Bunny,” his fluorescent rabbit called Alba (2000).
Kac’s work has been exhibited internationally at venues such as Exit Art and Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York; Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid; Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai; and Seoul Museum of Art, Korea.
Kac‘s work has been showcased in biennials such as Yokohama Triennial, Japan; Biennial of the End of the World, Ushuaia, Argentina; Gwangju Biennale, Korea; Bienal de Sao Paulo, Brazil; International Triennial of New Media Art, National Art Museum of China, Beijing; and Bienal de Habana, Cuba. His work is in the permanent collections of the Tate, London; the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; the Museum of Modern Art in New York; Frac Occitanie—Regional collections of contemporary art, Les Abattoirs—Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Toulouse, France; the Museum of Modern Art of Valencia, Spain; the ZKM Museum, Karlsruhe, Germany; Art Center Nabi, Seoul; and the Museum of Contemporary Art of São Paulo, among others.
Kac‘s work has been featured both in contemporary art publications (Contemporary, Flash Art, Artforum, ARTnews, Kunstforum, Tema Celeste, Artpress, NY Arts Magazine), contemporary art books (Phaidon, Thames and Hudson, Oxford, MIT Press) and in the mass media (ABC, BBC, PBS, Le Monde, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, New York Times). Kac has received many awards, including the Golden Nica Award, the most prestigious award in the field of media arts and the highest prize awarded by Ars Electronica. He lectures and publishes worldwide.
His work is documented at www.ekac.org.
