The project In Vitro and Transspecies is a complex continuation of the project Hair.
It presents possibilities of biotechnology. With contemporary knowledge and know-how in the field of microbiology and possibilities that open with development of sophisticated technologies, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, several questions open for the contemporary society, which has to be only considered from the anthropological, philosophical, sociological, and political aspects. The development of biotechnology brings a realization of our dreams as well as our fears. Art, in this case, opens a transdisciplinary field, within which it is possible to use suitable scientific methods, techniques, and tools, and it is also possible to perform a discourse on biotechnology and reflect upon related questions within the field of art (or culture) to reach wider and not only professional public.
The project includes a series of experiments on possibilities of "artificial" cultivation of hair - cultivating hair under artificial conditions in dead medium, cultivating hair in living medium, transplantation of hair as biological material from one biological species into another. In such a manner a project opens a discourse on artificial living as it is being enabled by biotechnology. The human being thus gets control over the biological material to such a degree that he is enabled to manipulate with it - keeps it alive, but performs various transferences that means combining biological species and creation of hybrids.
Additionally, the project includes experimentation with stem cells and testing the assistance of stem cells in transplanting biological material into the biological environment of another kind. As a biological material hair is especially interesting for many reasons. Blood cells do not divide and thus blood cells cannot be artifically cultivated. Skin and cartilage cells do divide but do not form tissue on their own, they need scaffolds. Hair cells fo divide and when doing that they form a certain form - that is a hair. Therefore the vivacity and division can be directly proved with proving the growth of the hair.
The first phase of the project is presented in the Kapelica Gallery. The project will be further developed in 2009 and 2010 as research in several phases. It is transdisciplinary based in cooperation with Blood Transfusion Centre of Slovenia – Tissue Typing Center (Ljubljana, Slovenia), Society for tissue and cell engineering (Ljubljana, Slovenia) and University of Primorska, Faculty of Humanities Koper (Slovenia).
