WorkHorse Zoo 

Introduction: On the grand scale, molecular biology is simultaneously seen in Utopic and Dystopic lights.  A great deal of hope is invested in the products of genetic engineering.  Many novel strains of life are being used to bolster markets like global agriculture, animal husbandry/IVF, drug development and gene therapy (somatic and germline).  The possible elimination of many inherited or acquired diseases keep a great many suffering people watching for promising results from recent clinical trials.  A great deal of fear is also cathected to the biotechnological sector.  It is not unusual to confront Biophobic visions of environmental apocalypse or intuit military applications.  To top it off, we are becoming Posthuman and slowly dealing with the loss of human identity as we had thought we were.  It is for this reason that my hopes and fears coagulate around the central question of ëWhat Is Bad Taste?í as it becomes imbedded in lifeís cascade.

Scientific and industrial organisms, created for specific utilization or for the furtherance of comprehension, are also expressions of aesthetic choices.  This is why I feel it is my duty as an artist to learn these technologies.  Instead of phobic reaction, I am attempting to critically embrace the processes of lifeís permanent and inheritable alteration. New reproductive strategies are opening the doors to rapid evolutionary trends, nationalized, racialized, popular and corporate.  Are there more aesthetic organisms?  The lack of a common global aesthetic and a historical track record of bad taste (i.e. ethnic cleansing, line dancing, liposuction and most painting) provides me with the impetus, the eclectic fecundity to guarantee iconoclasm in a situation which could all too easily lead to the erasure of the same.  This is the impediment and the allure that epitomizes the crossroad between biology and the arts.

Description: I feel a strong desire to surround myself with the most known and least know organisms on earth, the industrial workhorses of molecular biology.  When I say surround myself I mean in a teeming and messy way,  uncontrolled pestilence, flies and worms and frogs.  These animals are research subjects but they are living beings as well.  I would like to fill a portable cleanroom (an aseptic containment facility) with the least aseptic barrage of industrial life possible.

One three meter by four meter CleanRoom able to house a variety of the workhorses of Molecular Biology together in  environment of coexistence and natural integration.   A sample list would include Escherichia Coli (bacteria), Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Brewerís Yeast), Drosophila M. (vinegar fly), C. Elegans (worm), Arabidopsis Thaliana (mustard plant), (Zebrafish), Xenopus Laevis (African Claw Toed Frog), Murine (Mice).  By the way, this is not a transgenic art so my ease in playing on fear of uncontained wild life is not an illegal and irresponsible act.

Within the cleanroom these microenvironments should overlap allowing free range for all the animals to hunt and be hunted in this ënaturalí setting.  The Zebra Fish should enjoy eating the C. Elegans whom, in turn should enjoy any E. Coli snacks they come across.  Xenopus do eat zebrafish and each other. I guess we will see whether the mice are good at fishing after 50 years of domesticity.  And donít worry, if the mice starve, the flies will suck on anything that rots, as will the mustard plants in a more subtle way (mulch).  Eventually I would like to find a way to establish a dynamic-equilibrium in this semi-closed food chain. 
That seems implausible but at least I will know how to raise them separately and find time to analyze their funky temperaments.  Perhaps I will enact the quintessential ëplaying Godí by dressing in a white robe and fake beard and adding food or more organisms to adjust the balance of power over time.  I know two hungry xenopus will put away fifteen zebrafish in five minutes.  It is plausible that I might live in an installation like this for a week or so, to document interactions and to be a spectacular lifeform as well.  I recently invited an old friend to join me, e-excerpt follows:

AZ --
>  Iím planning a zoo of industrial critters:
>  
>  Iím wondering if you
>  Wanna live in it with me for a week 
>  in a cleanroom 
>  in a museum in Kansas
>  filled with flies and worms and mice, etc?
>  we could wear full aseptic containment facility wardrobe.
>  we could net tropical fish and fry them
>  or just have friends feed us Doritos like fish.

KW --
>Hey Adam, the gallery sitting sounds fun, can we take showers? or does that
>have to be on exhibit too, or no shower?

I have to say, I love this one and look forward to swimming with the Zebrafish.  I think itís apropos for me to accentuate how this comments on the state of the ënaturalí in our divisive social landscape.  For me, it comes down to a rift between two visions of Nature and my third yet least popular version of the world of life.  

The first envisions Mother Nature as a vestal virgin.  Clean, untouched and essentially a victim of human rape.  The subtext reads loudly that we are dirty and sinful humans with our predominant motives being gluttony and destruction.  This truth emphasizes the human destruction of all the gifts that evolution has provided. We are destroying ourselves. We are the temporary heads of the food chain and dealing, badly, with the behaviors that got us here.    This is Deep and cynical Ecology.

Another paradigm sees Nature as red in tooth and claw, a beast that maims and kills indiscriminately.  Through the application of our inherited talents to survive, we will overcome all the trials and tribulations of any chaotic situation that confronts our precarious situation.  We are like a giant mass immune system ready to battle polio, syphilis and cancer, enemies of life and joy.  In this battle we may have to study all of the possible problems of life regardless of conventional moral bias.  This is the manifest destiny of  Health Science rhetoric.

Both Ideas presume moral superiority.  Both claim to be humane.  And neither is truly represented by the Workhorse Zoo.  Instead, I am curious and slightly obsessed with the life cycle, so Letís Just Let It Cycle.  In a strange way I think am a demented naturalist, as is nature in many ways.  So, more than any essential anality on either side lets set a precedent for bioart as a love for slimy, gooey, sticky, pulsating, throbbing, jumping, flapping, living and dying, eating and having sex, Everyday Life.      

Public Knowledge Purpose: To introduce the public these particular species in an installation environment.  I feel as if the display of these animals, (preferably wild type, not genetically modified but the fish, frogs and mice could be wild-type albinos), in a spectator arena is an aid towards intelligent discussion about animal research, pro or con, without the moral superiority of pat answers.  These are the organisms that shoulder the brunt of scientific invasiveness. These are the organisms whose genomes have been sequenced, partially annotated and altered beyond the plausible.  These are the evolutionary templates whom we search for homologies to assess our own inherited pains.  Much of the public has little or no idea how much the study of these select strains effects their health and potential physical future.

Personal Knowledge Purpose: To get to know the life cycle and habitat of most of the major WorkHorses of the modern Life Sciences.  In particular, the organisms with completed genomes should be in the repertoire.  I want to learn the lab protocols for keeping these funky guys alive.  And, I want to understand the conditions of their environment outside of the lab.  My preference for learning both habitats is to be able to blend perfect lab conditions with things like soil and rotting fruit.  Also, It is important to contrast their preferred niches to an industry standard, protocol driven recipe for animal maintenance.  Finally, I am not sure of the interactions between these organisms and look forward to finding out how dynamic this complex semi-closed system will be.

Artistic Purpose: To show an exuberance of life in an environment at once artistic, scientistic and ënaturalí. To compare or perhaps exacerbate the division between natural and artificial worlds. To compare the concepts of Nature and Domesticity by a botched version of the wild being presented under NIH standard biological rules of containment (HEPA Filters!)  To fall in love with these particular strains as they may be a big part of my lifeís work.

Delivered-To: mit@emutagen.com
X-Sender: protocol@sfsu.edu
Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2001 17:56:30 -0700
To: zaretsky@mit.edu
From: Committee for the Protection of Human and Animal Subjects <protocol@sfsu.edu>
Subject: Animal Subjects Protocol
Cc: swalters@cluster1.sfsu.edu

October 4, 2001

Dear Mr. Zaretsky:

The SFSU University Animal Care and Use Committee has reviewed your protocol #01-028 "Conceptual information Art".  YOUR APPLICATION HAS BEEN DENIED BY THE COMMITTEE AND THE RESEARCH MAY NOT PROCEED.

If you have questions, please contact me at 338-1093 or protocol@sfsu.edu.

Sincerely,
Linda Blackwood, PhD
Chair, University Animal Care and Use Committee

To: emutagen@emutagen.com
From: Committee for the Protection of Human and Animal Subjects <protocol@sfsu.edu>
Subject: Animal Subjects Protocol
Cc: fonteyn@cluster1.sfsu.edu, swalters@cluster1.sfsu.edu

>Mime-Version: 1.0
>Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2001 08:38:45 -0700
>To: kmorison@sfsu.edu, swalters@sfsu.edu
>From: Paul J Fonteyn <fonteyn@sfsu.edu>
>Subject: Zaretsky Animal subjects protocol
>Cc: lblackwo@sfsu.edu
>Status: U
>
> ; margin-bottom: 0 }  -->l Keith and Sylvia,
> Normally, I don't inform you about decisions concerning actions taken on
>protocols made by the Committee for the Protection of Human and Animal
>Subjects but I feel I must this time to ensure that Mr. Zaretsky does
>comply with the decision of the committee.  I feel that I must in form you
>because what he proposes to do involves, among other things, housing
>multiple species together,  allowing dead animals to decay, and  not
>providing either food or water for the mice in the installation. In short,
>his project breaks all the rules for animal care and use.
>  If he were to carry out his project on our campus and the USDA or  an
>NIH Inspector were to find out, SFSU would  be shut down from conducting
>any research on this campus.  If our students and faculty  saw this
>project,they undoubtedly would notify PETA, and the members of this
>organization  would rightfully be all over the university because the
>project,in the words of one of the committee member's, "shows a totally
>cavalier and disrespectful attitude for animals."
> If you have any additional concerning this project, please don't hesitate
>to contact Linda Blackwood, the Chair of SFSU's University Animal Care and
>Use Committee.
> Thanks in advance for your cooperation in this matter.
>--
>                                      Paul J. Fonteyn
>                                     
>                                     Dean of Graduate Studies,
>                                        Associate Vice President, Research
>                                       and Sponsored Programs
>                                           San Francisco State University
>                                           Voice: (415) 338-2231
>                                    
>

October 11, 2001

Dear Mr. Zaretsky:

Your proposal "Workhorse Zoo" contained two major grievous violations of the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals.  Specifically, these are:  1)  proposing to withhold food, clean water and care, and  2) housing multiple species together.   These serious violations resulted in  your proposal being denied by the SFSU UACUC after their initial, preliminary review.

I feel I must point out that your proposal reflected a very cavalier attitude toward laboratory animals.  Your stated project represents abuse of animals, in direct contrast to the Animal Welfare Act that the Committee must support, and does so willingly and ardently.

Working with laboratory animals is a privilege that carries with it enormous responsibility for the welfare of these animals on the part of both the institution and the researcher.  The violations stated above leave us with no alternative but to deny your application.

Sincerely,
Linda Blackwood, Chair
SFSU UACUC

Hi Linda

I understand the position of the Committee and though my temperament differs, I am not as of yet objecting.

I would like to reword an acceptable version of this project.  I hope to arrive at an artistic compromise that coincides with this particular moment in protocol.  I ask again whether its proper to appeal or reapply?

In conjunction,  I would hope for a direct answer about being allowed access to the electric discussions of the committee.  I believe I read that proper review of these records is in order?  I do understand that this preparatory research on an art installation did not get past initial, preliminary review.  As a neophyte in the realm of Human and Animal Subject Protocol on a State Campus, the committee's commentary may be an irreplaceable teach-tool. 

Adam Zaretsky

Delivered-To: emutagen@emutagen.com
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 19:24:54 -0700
To: emutagen@emutagen.com
From: Jean Gustin <jgustin@sfsu.edu>
Subject: frog dayz

Hey Adam,
	Great domain name/email address.  Tryin' to initiate dialog
whenver/however ya' can i see.
	A quick survey of lab personnel sez that we're injecting a female
with HCG tonight (monday, 10/15), and we'll be collecting her eggs and
doing fertilizations tomorrow (tues., 10/16), throughout the day.  I
imagine we'll start collecting eggs around 9 or 10am.....the quantity of
eggs varies with each frog, so we get from 1-6 clutches of eggs, depending.
And unfortunately, we sometimes get NO eggs.  We'll have to wait 'n see.
You can either stop by tomorrow, or just give us a call (8-6998) and see
how things are going.  If all goes well, one of the students will be
injecting the resulting embryos with a fluorescent compound (rhodamine).

see ya'/talk to ya' soon,
jean

Domingo Laboratory
Department of Biology
San Francisco State University
1600 Holloway, HH201
San Francisco, CA 94132
(415) 338-6998; fax (415) 338-2295

 Feel free to advise.

October 16, 2001

Dear Mr Zaretsky:

In order for your protocol to be reconsidered for review by the UACUC, there are certain absolute criteria that need to be met.  They are:

l.  Different species must be housed separately.
2.  All animals must receive adequate food, water and care.
3.  Housing must be available for all animals proposed.  While rodents may be easy to accommodate, Xenopus housing may not be currently available and may need to be provided by the investigator.
4.  Appropriate permits for the Xenopus must be provided to the committee before they will review a protocol proposing their use.

Since the interaction between species seems to be integral to you project, it is unclear to me how you  could redesign this project to meet federal guidelines for animal care and housing.  If, however, the proposed project is substantially altered to address these issues, the committee will  review it.

Sincerely,
Linda Blackwood, PhD
Chair, SFSU UACUC

Delivered-To: emutagen@emutagen.com
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 09:23:19 -0700
To: Adam Zaretsky <emutagen@emutagen.com>
From: Jean Gustin <jgustin@sfsu.edu>
Subject: Re: frog dayz

Oh I'm sure you'll have puh-lenty of other opportunities.....

Nothin's happenin' on this particular Wednesday....aside from looking at
the embryos that we'll make on Tuesday (today).  Katy might be making some
explants/extirpations, so there might some microsurgery stuff happening.
Nothing to do with the adults though.

There's a possibility that we're setting up another female on thursday
nite, for eggs/embryos/ferts on Friday during the day.  If that happens,
we'll be injecting her embryos with an in vitro transcribed mRNA that
encodes a "wnt" molecule (mWnt-1).  This is supposed to give ya' "twin-ing
of the axis" in the tadpoles, ie., two heads.  We wouldn't see anything
'til next week.  And we may do those injections next Monday as opposed to
this coming Friday.  Of course we're not just doin' this for fun...it give
you information on the expression of certain (wnt) receptors in the xenopus
embryos.

that's all for now folks!
have fun exploring,
jean

>Thanks Jean
>
>Im at the Exploratorium with my class until 5
>whats up at night or on Wednesday!!!
>
>Sorry to miss the team in action.
>Adam

Domingo Laboratory
Department of Biology
San Francisco State University
1600 Holloway, HH201
San Francisco, CA 94132
(415) 338-6998; fax (415) 338-2295

To: plevine@sfsu.edu
From: Adam Zaretsky <emutagen@emutagen.com>
Subject: Analysis
Cc: swilson@sfsu.edu, swalters@sfsu.edu, morrison@cluster1.sfsu.edu
Bcc: 
X-Attachments: 

Here are my personal writings about the Zoo rejection:

Subject: Re: clarifying the educational intentions of zaretsky class proposals for animal studies

Let me clarify some of the objections of the Review Board.†

l.  Different species must be housed separately.

This means that vertebrates involved in scientific experiments on campus must be separated, by species, before the sun sets each day.  There are many rules for housing (i.e. air cycling, light and temperature qualifications, etc.)  One of the rules is that multiple species cannot stay over night at each other's houses!  For this installation, I assumed that the clean room would be their house, as well as my own.  I even stated that this was a way of researching housing alone.  I even hinted that there was no experiment whatsoever, only ëUSí living together.  Finally, I insisted that this was not for the scientific purposes whatsoever.
 
2.  All animals must receive adequate food, water and care.

By this they mean two things:

FOOD:  The plan to try to establish a self-sufficient experimental eco-system within the clean room exposes vertebrates to the possibility of becoming-food.  Many organisms could be eaten by many others.   Since the outcome of any research is uncertain, the possibilities have caused qualms.  Highly probable would be the eating of zebrafish by xenopus frogs  (Iíve seen it happen.)  Xenopus frogs eat live fish in their natural environment but in the lab they are only allowed to eat fish pellets or cow's liver.  Using vertebrates as live food is deemed cruelty to animals, as is allowing them to determine how they, with their own agency, would prefer to forage.  (Foraging for loin, a major joy on earth is also a process that is usurped by transgenic protocols with no reference to the Oedipal cruelty involved.)†

The frogs and the fish also eat flies, worms and each other's eggs but since none of these are vertebratesÖ embryos included... they are not covered by the animal care committee.  The worms and flies, yeast and E. Coli may be carnivorous in a closed system, but that part of FOOD was not explored.  This is probably because of the size and dissimilarity of these organisms to the anthropocentric values of the Animal Care Committee guidelines.  (A side note: Animal Rights activists join animal researchers in their predisposition to ëcare on a sliding scaleí.  Bilateral Symmetry, Spinal Columns and Brain size are arbitrary hierarchies of vital worth.)

The withholding of processed food in an environment chock full of juicy live food does not seem like abuse to me.  It seems more like a process of De-Suburbanizing Research subjects.  Hunting and gathering does not seem like a Luddite's suggestion for a frog or a mouse.   The only avenue of nourishment available to many human urbanites is pre-masticated, faddishly shaped and repackaged/retitled food.  Perhaps a deer hunt or a lesson in living off the land would do these tunnel visionaries well.†

Experimental workhorses would not eat pelletized (and web advertised) versions of their ordinary caloric intake without bourgeois (read suburban) food aesthetics.  The particular version of care that our fetishized domestication promotes brings us right back to the Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny fallacy.  The more homogenized the food is does not imply the degree of love, culture or even luxury that the animal receives.

Finally, the assumption that a water garden, with aeration and filtrationÖ even a little streamÖ would not be enough water for the mice is absurd.  When I mentioned this to Linda Blackwood, head of animal care, she said, ìOh, that old water.î  I think that there is nothing less drinkable about frog or fish water unless you need your animals quarantined for repeatable results.

DEATH

Death of vertebrates assumes removal and proper disposal of corpses from the experimental environment.  I had suggested that the death of any vertebrates, my own included, would be followed by burial within the eco-system. This is an example of holism.  Any field ecology experiment that doesnít figure in mortality is missing an essential part of lifeís cycling.  I admit that burial is also a mammal-centric cultural banality.  There is no reason not to just aerate the dead, they just smell more and force mortal analysis.  I still support the burial of any art casualties.  This is mostly because I want to feed the plants.  As a former organic farmer, I can tell you that plants are not vegetarians.  They are patient hunters who love blood and bones as much as they love rock dust and manure.  The process of rejoining the earth after death is not animal abuse.  Death itself is not a bad thing.  The denial of death, whether it is to feed another, old age or animal experimentation, is one of the issues I hope to make more transparent with this art piece.

3. Housing must be available for all animals proposed.  While rodents may be easy to accommodate, Xenopus housing may not be currently available and may need to be provided by the investigator.

As I have said, housing animals is separate from researching them.  If anything, the definition of the animals in my installation would not be ëresearch subjectsí or ëpetsí but, as in the zoo, they would be thought of as entertainers.  The fish and game department has rules for Animal Entertainers, which are different from the rules for pets and research subjects.  I will be comparing these in a further communiquÈ.

4. Appropriate permits for the Xenopus must be provided to the committee before they will review a protocol proposing their use.

This is true and I am in process of applying.

There is also the issue of animal care contra animal rights.  The committee is set up to buffer criticism and attacks from ideologically polarized campus groups like PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.)  This means that art, 'with no educational or use value', can never be justified to cause any harm... without threatening an halt of animal experimentation and a federal review.  I would like to make it clear that I support animal research as a tool for aiding human health and the environmental understanding.  I also support animal experimentation,  within appropriate review, for both pure R&D (curiosity based research) and simply educational goals.  I think the zoo has some deep educational goals which should not be censored because the 'ART' genre of educational and cultural knowledge production is prejudged to be frivolous or mere entertainment.†

I hope art is not held in such a vaporous light by the committee.  If this art is deemed to be the cultural equivalent of 'survivor' on TV, then by all means, fear the consequences of PETA's overtly righteous stance.  But, if this project has any redeeming social value, the committee should be as vigilant to protect the intellectual expression of their coleagues campus wide reguardless of paradigmatic avenues of investigation.  If you can learn to remove mouse ovaries in a classroom educational context, as Linda Blackwood teaches here on campus then art classes should be able to express their educational needs to teach human-animal interrelation in a very real and viscous way, outside of any scientific context.  Otherwise, the sciences are being privileged as more integral to shared cultural knowledge and the committee should rescind jurisdiction over other equal but different majors here on campus.  Is the Creative Art Department merely a decorative craft major or a celebrated avenue for research and development in this University setting?  Is Creative Arts a real and respected department here on campus?

My vision of The Zoo is still a vision of unfettered play.  I will not condone over mothering as ëcare.í  My major concern lies with the display of more-than-ordinary, independent interactions of domesticated, laboratory animals, humans included.  The artifice of the zoo is just a dichotomous abstraction of a larger vitality that is more or less, subject to containment.  Animal care is not just suburban values placed on animals otherwise interrogated for utility.  Care is not just taming or a ëmaking comfortableí these living mirrors of our assumed civility.  And art is not science but should be treated to equal respect, consideration and even protection of the legal, ethical and social committees that exist here on campus.

Delivered-To: emutagen@emutagen.com
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 18:45:36 -0800
To: <emutagen@emutagen.com>
From: Jean Gustin <jgustin@sfsu.edu>
Subject: Re: XenoRinse

Hey Adam,
	I checked all our guys....we had no luck with that round of
injections.  There were no GFP +ve guys, and no dual-axis tadpoles.  The
results suggest RNAse contamination.....the cells should've at LEast been
GFP labelled.

We tried again today.....this time out, I boosted the concentration of GFP
RNA and Wnt RNA...

The injections (4.6nl/8-cell embryo) were as follows.....
-100pg GFP RNA + 100pg Wnt RNA/4.6nl
-100pg GFP RNA + 10pg Wnt RNA/4.6nl
-100pg GFP RNA/4.6nl

keep yer' fingers crossed, and we'll check 'em maÒana.....

jean

p.s. I put some clean buffer on the guys you injected last week and cleaned
out all the deaders.  Nothin' to see though.....

>Hi Jean
>Adam here

>I haven't been in this weekend to rinse the micro-injected in the incubator.
>I also wont be in tomorrow.  So is it possible you might ask someone to
>change their MBS to encourage development.  Also, thanks for your (an
>Carmen's) openness.
>
>AdamZ

Domingo Laboratory
Department of Biology
San Francisco State University
1600 Holloway, HH201
San Francisco, CA 94132
(415) 338-6998; fax (415) 338-2295

>X-Sender: mwhary@hesiod (Unverified)
>Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 16:27:31 -0500
>To: demain@mit.edu
>From: Mark Whary <mwhary@MIT.EDU>
>Subject: Adam Zaretsky
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>
>Dr. Demain - we received an email from a veterinarian in California
>inquiring about Adam Zaretsky and 30 xenopus frogs that he brought with him
>from MIT. His office address in the phone book is the same as your lab. Can
>you shed any light on this? Thanks.
>Mark T. Whary DVM PhD ACLAM
>77 Massachusetts Ave Bldg. 16-825A
>Cambridge, MA 02139
>617-253-9435
>617-258-5708 Fax
>
To: Arnold Demain <demain@MIT.EDU>
From: Adam Zaretsky <emutagen@emutagen.com>
Subject: Re: Xenopus
Cc: mwhary@MIT.EDU, aiqi@mit.edu, swalters@sfsu.edu, plevine@cluster1.sfsu.edu, swilson@cluster1.sfsu.edu
Bcc: 
X-Attachments: 

Arny and Mark,

Sorry this letter took so long.  I am teaching full time.  I did bring one Xenopus frog to california.  I was not aware of the Fish and Game License needed for this species.  The Origin of the Xenopus was Rockefeller University, not MIT and again... the number was one, not 30.  Perhaps thirty refers to the number of embryos given to me in NYC... or the number of frogs I expect will be in my exhibition?  The vet was a member of† Committee for the Protection of Human and Animal Subjects <protocol@sfsu.edu> whom I applied to be allowed to research Workhorse interactions.  Although I disagree with the committee's rejection, my art research has ceased on campus.  I do continue to apply the effects of wnt-1 mRNA on Xenopus development, but that is under the tutelage of an approved embryological lab here on campus.

http://www.fondation-langlois.org/e/projets/618-5-2001/618-5-2001.html

http://www.fondation-langlois.org/e/projets/618-5-2001/618-5-2001_artiste.htm

Feel free to contact me if further details are nec.

Adam Zaretsky, Professor, Conceptual/Information Arts (CIA)
Art Dept, 1600 Holloway,  San Francisco State University,SF,CA 94132
(415) 338-2291††

Dear group - Adam's course  seems to inadvertently be annoying alot of
people and in particular is annoying the graduate division dean (also
deanof research and sponsored programs)(see below). Keith and I are both
concerned that this could easily have a negative impact on future dealings
with Dean Fonteyn and with others on the animal care committee. We need to
meet about this ASAP please. In the interim, I am  requesting  Adam not
contact anyone in Dean Fonteyn's office. Adam, if you need to reach that
office, please let me know so I can help you achieve whatever it is you
need. Please let me know what your available meeting times are for next
monday-tuesday so we can schedule a confab. Thanks
Sylvia

>Mime-Version: 1.0
>Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 14:18:49 -0800
>To: kmorison@sfsu.edu, swalters@sfsu.edu
>From: Paul J Fonteyn <fonteyn@sfsu.edu>
>Subject: Fwd: Zaretsky
>
>Keith and Sylvia,
>
>Enough is enough with the Visiting professor.
>
>At this point, I view him as someone who is out to harass the members
>of Animal Use and Care Committee (see message below). The Committee
>is not some unit to be used as a class experiment ("an experiment in
>social interaction" Zaretsky's words see below.)  It is composed of
>well meaning faculty members who are conducting this service on
>behalf of their university colleagues.  Their  precious time should
>not be wasted.
>
>I also want you to know that today, for the first time in the ten
>years my secretary, Vicki, a person of infinite patience, hung up on
>someone--that someone was Zaretsky.  She hung up after he  mentioned
>three times about  making of a bomb and laughing inappropriately as
>he spoke  about it.
>
>This is second incidence this semester I have had to deal with  Mr. Zaresky.
>
>Please get his person under control.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>X-Sender: protocol@sfsu.edu
>>Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2001 13:51:30 -0800
>>To: fonteyn@cluster1.sfsu.edu
>>From: Committee for the Protection of Human and Animal Subjects
>><protocol@sfsu.edu>
>>Subject: Zaretsky
>>
>>
Hi Linda Et. Al.

I have sent a rather large bindle of requests for vertebrate art 
projects.  Some verbotten to be sure, others quite sane and joyous, a 
few trudging the borderlines.  These are inspired for the sake of 
debate, young artists learning the ropes of free expression in a rule 
based world.  I would appreciate the same consternation with which 
you treat the scientific investigations proposed by undergrads to be 
applied here.  This is not a joke but an experiment in social 
interaction.

As an interactive project, I should like to contact the individual 
members of the committee for their personal views on my rejected 
project and my student's applications.  Would it be possible to have 
a list of the members and their e-mails?

I would also like to invite any and all members of the committee to 
come to my friday class and discuss issues of Animal Care and 
research to an open, varied and freethinking roundtable.

Adam Zaretsky, Professor, Conceptual/Information Arts (CIA)
Art Dept, 1600 Holloway,  San Francisco State University,SF,CA 94132
(415) 338-2291  

>>
>>Sincerely,
>>Linda Blackwood, PhD
>>Coordinator for the Protection of Human and Animal Subjects
>>Professor of Biomedical Laboratory Science
>
>--
>††					Paul J. Fonteyn
>
>					Dean of Graduate Studies,
>				††††	Associate Vice President, Research
>†††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††	and Sponsored Programs
>†††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††	San Francisco State University
>†††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††	Voice: (415) 338-2231

Dear group - Adam's course  seems to inadvertently be annoying alot of
people and in particular is annoying the graduate division dean (also
deanof research and sponsored programs)(see below). Keith and I are both
concerned that this could easily have a negative impact on future dealings
with Dean Fonteyn and with others on the animal care committee. We need to
meet about this ASAP please. In the interim, I am  requesting  Adam not
contact anyone in Dean Fonteyn's office. Adam, if you need to reach that
office, please let me know so I can help you achieve whatever it is you
need. Please let me know what your available meeting times are for next
monday-tuesday so we can schedule a confab. Thanks
Sylvia

Sylvia, Et. Al.

This is disrespectful to the artists under my tutelage.  They may be irreverent but they are filling out forms that the committee is legally bound to review.  Their ideas of what research is and the definitions of experimentation, social or otherwise, are no more or less important than the time it takes for the committee to review their other peers.  The fact is, Linda Blackwood returned four of my applications as they pertained to human subjects and told me to forward them to CPHS, which is run by Paul Fonteyn.  They were all signed by you Sylvia.  The Peace Dove performance, The Electric Urinal, The Wired Seance and, strangely... The Manure Bomb.  The manure bomb for world peace was labeled "NOT ANIMAL PRODUCT"  Strange, I consider poop to be an animal product.  I wasn't sure if that meant that scat munitions were under Paul's Jurisdiction or we were just free to go ahead with our weapons plans.  So I called Paul's Office.

This was not harassment, just plodding by the book.  Unfortunately, as the secretary in the office can attest, I had an epiphany of absurdist gestalt while asking whether the manure bomb project fell under the jurisdiction of CPHS or not.  Human subjects would surly be effected in the long run.  Many innocent lives would be saved if demagogues were forced to fight with excrement instead of shrapnel, radiation or bio-weaponry.  Pacifism inherent in the project aside, the ridiculous social pimple of my tactical gaming from within this system of rule based logic, found me in the open terrain of what is known as the giggles.

 I can apologize for being human.  This instance made my semester as I was caught unaware in a silly circumstance inadvertently caused by a botched collaboration between Art and Science.  I should mention, before Vicky hung up, that she told me to just send all of the Applications to CPHS.  So the four projects (including the one that puts logic back into scatology) are due to be dealt with again in the near future.

My students have applied.  Their projects are real concepts.  The committee may reject but they can not choose not to review.  That is their job.  I'm sorry if the paper trail is not to their liking, but they get paid for their precious time.

This said, I will meet with you Teusday lunch or Wednesday day or you can come and meet my class tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock.  I think that would be appropriate as these are student research projects.  The afternoon speech might be quite rewarding as well.

Adam Zaretsky, Professor, Conceptual/Information Arts (CIA)
Art Dept, 1600 Holloway,  San Francisco State University,SF,CA 94132
(415) 338-2291††

Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 19:58:06 -0800 (PST)
From: Stephen Wilson <swilson@sfsu.edu>
Reply-To: Stephen Wilson <swilson@sfsu.edu>
To: fonteyn@sfsu.edu, protocol@sfsu.edu
cc: morrison@sfsu.edu, Sylvia Walters <swalters@sfsu.edu>,
   paula levine <plevine@sfsu.edu>, emutagen@emutagen.com,
   Stephen Wilson <swilson@sfsu.edu>
Subject: clarifying the educational intentions of zaretsky class proosals for animal studies

To: Paul Fontyn, Director of Research and Sponsored Programs
Linda Blackwood, chair of the committee on protection of animal subjects
Members of the committee on protection of animal subjects
From:  Stephen Wilson, director, conceptual/information arts program, Art
Tepartment

cc:  Keith Morrison, Dean of Creative Arts; Sylvia Walters, Chair of the
Art Department; Paula Levine; Adam Zaretsky

I am sorry there has been so much agony around the activities of our
visiting professor, Adam Zaretsky.  This document has several goals:  1.
Clarifying the educational motivations behind the submission of proposals
to your committee; 2. Attempting to find a workable solution that honors
both the realities of your committee's workload and the educational
purposes of the submission of the proposals; and 3. Initiating a
discussion about future arrangements to deal with  similar projects for
other classes. I am writing this memo because I am head of the
Conceptual/Information Arts area of the Art Department that recommended
Zaretsky be hired.  Eventhough I am on sabbatical this year, I felt it was
important to attempt to clarify what is going on.

**** 1. Clarifying the educational motivations:  Artists around the world
are beginning to focus on biological and medical research as critical
areas of cultural activity.  Coming from a variety of ideological
positions, they are creating projects that probe and celebrate this
research.  Increasingly you will see projects in the arts that propose to
work with living materials.  This growing interest and activity is a
positive development because it will greatly expand public understanding
of the complexities of research, increase the sophistication of public
debate, and help build a reapproachment between the arts, humanities, and
sciences. ##  The proposals Zaretsky's class submitted are not the last
that committees like yours will need to ponder in the future.

We were very pleased to find Adam Zaretsky.  Internationally he is one of
the leading young artists working in this area of the arts.  His proposal
for the multiple species project was among the 20 competitively chosen out
of 300 submitted to the Langlois Foundation in international competitions
for art projects that explore the integration of art and science.  We were
impressed with the scope of his thinking about the topics of art and
biology.  He values the research enterprize and has taken steps through
internships to actually work with biological researchers.  Unlike some in
the art world, he does not come with a calcified philsophical position but
rather approaches the topics with an open mind.

As part of this approach he has attempted to increase the understanding of
the students in his innovative course "Art-Biology Studio" about the
ethical and scientific issues in research.  He is not mocking your
committee. Rather, he respects your work greatly.  He sees university
committees on protection of animal and human subjects as critical culture
focus points.  These committees are the place in which a society debates
the ethical and scientific issues in research and in which the competing
agendas are articulated.   He is getting students interested in
illustrative places of dispute and unclarity - for example, why are
vertebrates more protected than invertebrates?  how do different
disciplines (lab biology, field biology, and psychology) approach the
questions differently?  why are standards different in other settings
where humans come in contact with animals such as entertainment, zoos, pet
care, food preparation, agriculture, education?  how does a society weigh
the benefits and costs of animal research?  how might the sciences and the
humanities differ in these assessments?  Zaretsky can speak more
articulately about these topics.

Preparation and submission of proposals for art projects using living
subjects is part of an educational strategy to get students thinking about
research and how their ideas fit in these larger issues.  If you can pull
back a moment from the unorthodoxy of the proposals and the increased
workload, you may recognize the marvelous educational accomplishment.
Here are 15 arts and humanities students who were probably not even aware
that committtes such as yours existed now actively trying to understand
the cultural issues underlying your work by actually preparing proposals.
I would hope you could approach these proposals with some degree of
seriousness despite their humor, irreverence, and their attempt to move
outside of the forms of traditional studies. If you had the time, you
might find these proposals entertaining and possibly enlightening as
mirrors of how those outside the science disciplines approach animal
research.

**** Attempting to find a workable solution:   I can appreciate the
consternation your committee might feel.  After serving for 20 years on
university review committees, the last thing I would like to see is 15
more unorthodox proposals that have to be considered and debated.  I
apologize that Zaretsky did not have  more preparatory discussions with
the research office.  Zaretsky does not have much experience with
university life yet and may not have realized the consequences and time
away from teaching/research that his submissions cause.

Nonetheless, the educational goal of the submission of proposals is
extremely important to students of this class.  The committee's feedback
is the completion of that activity.  Would it be possible for a couple of
volunteer members of the committee to meet with the students to discuss
how each proposal would be received, what issues they would raise, and
generally engage with students in exploration of how research is assessed?
This kind of discussion would honor the educational goals of the
university.

****  Initiating a discussion about future arrangements:  With the growing
interest of the arts in human and animal research, there will be more such
incidents in the future.  How can we handle them?  How can we avoid
overloading these review committees?  Can we perhaps begin to think about
some kind of interdisciplinary committee that would review
interdisciplinary proposals?  My colleagues and I would look forward to
such a discussion. A phone discussion soon between you and Sylvia Walters,
the chair of the Art Department would be a good way to start.

****************************
Stephen Wilson, Professor, Conceptual/Information Arts (CIA)
Art Dept, 1600 Holloway,  San Francisco State University,SF,CA 94132
(415) 338-2291     swilson@sfsu.edu      http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~swilson
***************************

Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 15:53:39 -0800
From: Paul J Fonteyn <fonteyn@sfsu.edu>
To: Stephen Wilson <swilson@sfsu.edu>
Cc: protocol@sfsu.edu, swalters@sfsu.edu, kmorison@sfsu.edu
Subject: Re: clarifying the educational intentions of zaretsky class proosals for animal studies

Dear Mr. Wilson,

The Committee will be  sending  Zaretsky latest bindle (his word) of 
proposals to Sylvia Walters for her review and action.  Some do not 
need committee review; some need to considered by the Committee for 
Protection of Human Subjects, and some perhaps must be reviewed  by 
the Animal Use and Care Committee.

For clarification, you should be made aware that Mr. Zaresky's 
proposal was dismissed out of hand by the Committee because it 
involved the abuse of animals, which can never be allowed.  I could 
not agree with you more that "Zaretsky does not have much experience 
with university life."

I am surprised that the Langlois Foundation did approved his project. 
My hope is that they did not realize animals were going to be abused 
in the project.

Paul J. Fonteyn

					Dean of Graduate Studies,
				††††	Associate Vice President, Research
††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††	and Sponsored Programs
††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††	San Francisco State University
††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††	Voice: (415) 338-2231

Here are my personal writings about the Zoo rejection:

Subject: Re: clarifying the educational intentions of zaretsky class proposals for animal studies

Let me clarify some of the objections of the Review Board.  

l.  Different species must be housed separately.

This means that vertebrates involved in scientific experiments on campus must be separated, by species, before the sun sets each day.  There are many rules for housing (i.e. air cycling, light and temperature qualifications, etc.)  One of the rules is that multiple species cannot stay over night at each other's houses!  For this installation, I assumed that the clean room would be their house, as well as my own.  I even stated that this was a way of researching housing alone.  I even hinted that there was no experiment whatsoever, only ëUSí living together.  Finally, I insisted that this was not for the scientific purposes whatsoever.
 
2.  All animals must receive adequate food, water and care.

By this they mean two things:

FOOD:  The plan to try to establish a self-sufficient experimental eco-system within the clean room exposes vertebrates to the possibility of becoming-food.  Many organisms could be eaten by many others.   Since the outcome of any research is uncertain, the possibilities have caused qualms.  Highly probable would be the eating of zebrafish by xenopus frogs  (Iíve seen it happen.)  Xenopus frogs eat live fish in their natural environment but in the lab they are only allowed to eat fish pellets or cow's liver.  Using vertebrates as live food is deemed cruelty to animals, as is allowing them to determine how they, with their own agency, would prefer to forage.  (Foraging for loin, a major joy on earth is also a process that is usurped by transgenic protocols with no reference to the Oedipal cruelty involved.)  

The frogs and the fish also eat flies, worms and each other's eggs but since none of these are vertebratesÖ embryos included... they are not covered by the animal care committee.  The worms and flies, yeast and E. Coli may be carnivorous in a closed system, but that part of FOOD was not explored.  This is probably because of the size and dissimilarity of these organisms to the anthropocentric values of the Animal Care Committee guidelines.  (A side note: Animal Rights activists join animal researchers in their predisposition to ëcare on a sliding scaleí.  Bilateral Symmetry, Spinal Columns and Brain size are arbitrary hierarchies of vital worth.)

The withholding of processed food in an environment chock full of juicy live food does not seem like abuse to me.  It seems more like a process of De-Suburbanizing Research subjects.  Hunting and gathering does not seem like a Luddite's suggestion for a frog or a mouse.   The only avenue of nourishment available to many human urbanites is pre-masticated, faddishly shaped and repackaged/retitled food.  Perhaps a deer hunt or a lesson in living off the land would do these tunnel visionaries well.  

Experimental workhorses would not eat pelletized (and web advertised) versions of their ordinary caloric intake without bourgeois (read suburban) food aesthetics.  The particular version of care that our fetishized domestication promotes brings us right back to the Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny fallacy.  The more homogenized the food is does not imply the degree of love, culture or even luxury that the animal receives.

Finally, the assumption that a water garden, with aeration and filtrationÖ even a little streamÖ would not be enough water for the mice is absurd.  When I mentioned this to Linda Blackwood, head of animal care, she said, ìOh, that old water.î  I think that there is nothing less drinkable about frog or fish water unless you need your animals quarantined for repeatable results. 

DEATH

Death of vertebrates assumes removal and proper disposal of corpses from the experimental environment.  I had suggested that the death of any vertebrates, my own included, would be followed by burial within the eco-system. This is an example of holism.  Any field ecology experiment that doesnít figure in mortality is missing an essential part of lifeís cycling.  I admit that burial is also a mammal-centric cultural banality.  There is no reason not to just aerate the dead, they just smell more and force mortal analysis.  I still support the burial of any art casualties.  This is mostly because I want to feed the plants.  As a former organic farmer, I can tell you that plants are not vegetarians.  They are patient hunters who love blood and bones as much as they love rock dust and manure.  The process of rejoining the earth after death is not animal abuse.  Death itself is not a bad thing.  The denial of death, whether it is to feed another, old age or animal experimentation, is one of the issues I hope to make more transparent with this art piece.

Housing must be available for all animals proposed.  While rodents may be easy to accommodate, Xenopus housing may not be currently available and may need to be provided by the investigator.

As I have said, housing animals is separate from researching them.  If anything, the definition of the animals in my installation would not be ëresearch subjectsí or ëpetsí but, as in the zoo, they would be thought of as entertainers.  The fish and game department has rules for Animal Entertainers, which are different from the rules for pets and research subjects.  I will be comparing these in a further communiquÈ.

Appropriate permits for the Xenopus must be provided to the committee before they will review a protocol proposing their use.

This is true and I am in process of applying.

I hope art is not held in such a vaporous light by the committee.  If this art is deemed to be the cultural equivalent of 'survivor' on TV, then by all means, fear the consequences of PETA's overtly righteous stance.  But, if this project has any redeeming social value, the committee should be as vigilant to protect the intellectual expression of their colleagues campus wide reguardless of paradigmatic avenues of investigation.  If you can learn to remove mouse ovaries in a classroom educational context, as Linda Blackwood teaches here on campus then art classes should be able to express their educational needs to teach human-animal interrelation in a very real and viscous way, outside of any scientific context.  Otherwise, the sciences are being privileged as more integral to shared cultural knowledge and the committee should rescind jurisdiction over other equal but different majors here on campus.  Is the Creative Art Department merely a decorative craft major or a celebrated avenue for research and development in this University setting?  Is Creative Arts a real and respected department here on campus?

My vision of The Zoo is still a vision of unfettered play.  I will not condone over mothering as ëcare.í  My major concern lies with the display of more-than-ordinary, independent interactions of domesticated, laboratory animals, humans included.  The artifice of the zoo is just a dichotomous abstraction of a larger vitality that is more or less, subject to containment.  Animal care is not just suburban values placed on animals otherwise interrogated for utility.  Care is not just taming or a ëmaking comfortableí these living mirrors of our assumed civility.  And art is not science but should be treated to equal respect, consideration and even protection of the legal, ethical and social committees that exist here on campus.

Hi Steve and Paula, the message below from Linda Blackwood strikes me as a
reasonable request.  I have forwarded it to Adam letting him know that I
intend to honor it and I have asked him to pass it along to his class.

>X-Sender: protocol@sfsu.edu
>Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 14:22:10 -0800
>To: swalters@cluster1.sfsu.edu
>From: Committee for the Protection of Human and Animal Subjects
><protocol@sfsu.edu>
>Subject: Mr. Zaretsky's student protocols
>Cc: fonteyn@cluster1.sfsu.edu
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>
>November 14, 2001
>
>Dear Sylvia:
>
>I am returning to you the protocols that students in Mr. Zaretsky's class
>have submitted to the UACUC.  Clearly, some of these projects are not
>legitimate and  will not be actually undertaken.  I feel it is the
>department's responsibility to screen protocols that are sent forward, and
>determine which warrant review.  Both the Committee for the Protection of
>Human Subjects and the University Animal Care and Use Committee have very
>dedicated and overworked members who receive no release time for their
>efforts.  Using their valuable time on theoretical classroom exercises
>should not be their responsibility.
>
>Several of the protocols submitted involve the use of human, rather than
>animal, subjects.  For those projects that actually will be conducted, the
>students should complete the human subjects forms found at
>sfsu.edu/~orspwww.  In addition, we will require that, unless the
>instructor and the students can document acceptable training in conducting
>human subjects research, they must complete the NIH on-line training for
>human subjects research found at the web site.
>
>Sincerely,
>Linda Blackwood, PhD
>Coordinator for the Protection of Human and Animal Subjects
>Professor of Biomedical Laboratory Science
>

Hi Sylvia Et. Al.

I thought we screened these so as to warrant any of your misgivings.  We happily scratched the killing of the cow with a ballpeen hammer and then grinding it up into sculpting material for a bust of George Bush.  We even scratched a request for human organ donation to mice to see if the mice might have more longevity.  This is the kind of project the NIH might even fund.  In the name of your anti cruelty stance, and with the respect due to you for taking the time to visit our class, we were congenial, even convivial!  I do want to thank you profusely as we are a lively and contentious crew.  If you didn't notice, we are also flexible, amiable, even familial.

I dont mind the obvious attempts at paring down workloads for the Committees involved.  But don't mistake flexibility for submission.  They have all the time in the world for hard science.  Does the word stalling mean anything to you?

I would say that the word legitimacy is not a value free term especially in terms of art projects directed towards a science review board.  We have met with repeated insults about time wastage in terms of any art project applied for through this committee.  Personally, I consider all the projects legitimate art projects.  Dont you? 

Since they all fall under the jurisdiction of animal care or human protection, they should be reviewed.  In fact, if you do not sign forward our projects after our agreed upon alterations (which were fit to suit your particular moral stance...) two troublesome things might happen.  One, you could be written up as a censor of legitimate art without the agreement of the students involved and Two... worse... the art might be undertaken without review.

  Then the rejection of due review by your act of disavowal might make you (at the committee's avoidance request) culpable for the actions of young artists asking for permission through the channels provided them here at State. If my students seek guidance and do not receive it then is this an implicit go ahead for them to act on their own accord?  The actual undertakeness of the plans are at the artist's discretion but are not implausible in any way. 

If they ask if they are allowed, and they are misconstrued as pure theoreticians, thus rebuked, what is the status of their further actions?

  Please let the committee do their job. 

The projects are real. 

The responses of the committee may be under study
but this does not rescind any of the committee's official responsibility.

After talking to Laurie Zoloth, one of the committee members, it appears that there is no precedent to these applications.  Paul and Linda may think this is a trap to inflame PETA on campus.  If any animal art is positively reviewed on campus, PETA may have a reaction. This is not the aim of these projects.  This is not an attack on the committee.  PETA has not been contacted regarding these issues.

Art research protocols alone are called into question. 

Animal research has to stand on its own two feet, even within the multi-disciplinary nature of campus wide education.

  My student's projects represent a myriad of expressive, individual wishes to act which happen to fall under the Committee for the Protection of Human and Animal Subjects' jurisdiction.  I personally support responsible animal research and responsible animal art.  Otherwise, I wouldn't have initiated dialogue with the ethical bodies that enforce state and federal law here on campus.  Im sure the committee's overworked volunteerism includes a dedication to undergraduate education and a responsibility to review all warranted applications.

These are legitimate conceptual art projects.  There may be some mockery of the rules but the committee doesn't make the rules, they just enforce them.  Please give me details as to how and why any and all art projects recently re-reviewed are now deemed unwarranted for review.  I will respect any gag order you have requested of me and not forward any of this inflammatory ranting to protocol@sfsu.edu or fonteyn@cluster1.sfsu.edu, but I am ccing my class and you have them to answer to as well as myself.

Adam Zaretsky

To: "Sylvia S. Walters" <swalters@sfsu.edu>
From: Adam Zaretsky <emutagen@emutagen.com>
Subject: E-Pollogies
Cc: 
Bcc: 
X-Attachments: 

Sylvia

I owe you an apology for my last letter.  Upon talking to you, I realized that it was incendiary and ineffectual to say the least.  I talked to the young artist who came up with the Non-Violent Bombing Project and she reiterated your major points quite eloquently.  She reminded me that this was a conceptual process, that the projects were not all meant to be actuated.  She also said that we had achieved our aims and she did not feel maligned by having her application rejected by the art office any more or less than by animal care or the protection of human subjects.

With my innate absurdism intact, I may have been getting too serious about being taken seriously.  It seems counterintuitive upon reflection.  I do take art research and Federal Guidelines for Human and Animal Subjects seriously.  But the Project of Applying was to feel the boundaries not pound at them.  I do feel bad because, as you said, new information came up and you were just keeping us informed.

So let me get off my high horse and apologize again.  I will let the chips fall where they may.  It is your authority and responsibility to determine which applications warrant review, which are not legitimate and which will probably not actually be undertaken.  But the most important thing is that we attempted dialog and the results can be reviewed and written up as a sociological event.  This is a ten year project, not to be accomplished in a semester.

I am also sorry if the emailing of students your letter and my response was a breach of our privacy.  I have made it a practice to treat my students like adults so this class has been privy to all of my back and forth correspondence on these issues this semester.  I felt that your request to forward your letter did not preclude any initial response I might have being appropriate for their eyes. By admitting my potential for conduct disorder, misplaced and overstated aggressive (and passive aggressive) textual style and plain bratitude (and a penchant for neologisms) I invite you to roast me as an olive branch towards a furtherance of this commensurate art-o'cracy.

Here are their emails if you feel the need cc this apology to them and include any response that you might have:

nada@spaz.org, tbonetommy@hotmail.com, sanpuru@pacbell.net, manwiththehex@hotmail.com, natashiamitchell@yahoo.com, rlawson@hotmail.com, michaellrich@hotmail.com, cbursell@sfsu.edu, sbrimer@hotmail.com, djtekizu@aol.com, samtag@juno.com, ericbembe@hotmail.com, mayu77@pacbell.net, ben_j_pearson@yahoo.com, ravenangeline@yahoo.com, tsuruko99@hotmail.com, studio45x@hotmail.com, sekhemet@hotmail.com, slschultz1@msn.com,         adelapp@sfsu.edu, reeces_p@hotmail.com, huan@sfsu.edu,         rumbaart@aol.com, taisho1@pacbell.net, mariahleila@hotmail.com,         arthur09@hotmail.com, luke@whiteoutfilms.com, gloriag123@yahoo.com,         amaiai923@yahoo.com, jreodica13@hotmail.com, manwiththehex@hotmail.com,         gloriag123@yahoo.com, zaretsky@MIT.EDU, emutagen@emutagen.com,         ecerpa@earthlink.net, ventifus@concentric.net, mdlclshero@aol.com,         natashiamitchell@yahoo.com, tbonetommy@hotmail.com,         dumbestguy@hotmail.com, figarokun@yahoo.com,         eightyminusthree@hotmail.com, mike@symmetrynetwork.com,         nathan_grover@excite.com, batsheva@sfsu.edu,         lawrencejose@earthlink.net, mitzilani@hotmail.com,         darthgolden77@yahoo.com, syklone@sfsu.edu, kei1004@sfsu.edu,         ischiller@earthlink.net, david@iownthesky.com, djtek124@aol.com,         vivsaya@yahoo.com, david@iownthesky.com, snoopy_vv@yahoo.com,         ravenangeline@yahoo.com, ezzypoo@excite.com,         neysablackbyrd1@hotmail.com, carolinehofer@hotmail.com,         ventifus@concentric.net, tjuckwalker@hotmail.com,         dumbestguy@hotmail.com, stellardesign@aol.com

They are good students and the class is great.
I hope to leave here with a piquant but yummy flavor.

Adam Zaretsky

>
>Sylvia,
>
>    I am not Adams student.  I am a CIA major yes, but I really despise what
>Adam is doing in our department.  I have repeatedly asked Adam to remove my
>name from his list of students.
>
>    Did you know that he has genetically modified animals in less than
>secure environments?  These animals are roaming free right now all over the
>fifth floor of the art building.  I don't know if you know this but it is
>illegal for Adam to have these creatures.  I found out that he got them from
>Berkley, don't ask me how he got them.  If just one of those animals mates
>with a native species it could cause drastic effects on the environment.
>
>    Please do not over look this man's doings because he claims to be an
>artist.  If you would go to the fifth floor you would see how he has trashed
>our department with his so-called bio art projects.  If you could stand the
>smell of stagnant decaying organic matter and the swarm of genetically
>mutated fly's buzzing around your face, you would see not art but a pig's
>sty.
>
>Thank you,
>
XXXXXXXXXXXXX Recently removed from this list, unnamed CIA major.
>

Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2001 23:20:09 -0800
To: swalters@sfsu.edu
From: Adam Zaretsky <zaretsky@mit.edu>
Subject: Antennapedia
Cc: swilson@sfsu.edu, plevine@sfsu.edu, zaretsky@mit.edu
Bcc:
X-Attachments: :focii:112292:bughead.jpg:

Sylvia

I read Lawrenceís letter.  I suppose one polemicist deserves another.  I also met with Fredrico.  He can attest to the fact that the CIA studio is not a pigsty.  There are some smelly paper mache animals we are preparing as enrichment toys for the lions and tigers at the Zoo.  And last week there were some mold paintings that were a little too successful.  I threw them away.  How is that for censorship?

Regardless, we will be clean sweeping and Lysol-ing Thursday night and Friday in class.  I will also do a clean up finals week.  The CIA lab will be returned to its previous pristine state or better before I leave town.†

As far as the mutant flies, they are an Antennapedia strain of D. melanogaster, (vinegar flies not fruit flies) order # WW-17-2470 at https://www3.carolina.com/onlinecatalog/ $5.30 Per culture.  I do think they are cleared for use with K through 12 but that does not excuse my laxity in training the students to keep them more properly contained.†

I am woeful about any unintentional release as it makes bio-artists look irresponsible.  I feel badly for not making the students involved more aware of the importance of understanding their potential to permanently effect hereditary morphological remodeling according to human will and desire (even unintentionality) in the environment as we think we know it.  I am not even sure what I have allowed take place.†

In a less philosophical mode, this is not an unusual occurrence in Labs and Classroom on every campus.  You have worked with Drosophila; did any ever get away?

For breadth, I posted an Email to bionet.drosophila:

I am a teacher at SFSU and have been using Antennapedia Drosophila to explain to my class about life cycle and mutagenesis.  Unfortunately, they were not perfectly contained and now some students are asking if we have destroyed the environment?  Even the department chair is a bit worried about safety.  That is probably because we are in the Art Department, not Biology.  What should I tell them?

Adam Zaretsky

We should have some expert opinions in a couple of days.

There were also two fish and a frog that died. We are trying to understand collaboration with life and we are not always successful.  These were unfortunate accidents.  The students do learn from inept nurturing, I hope.

To wrap it up, I will re-educate myself along with the students involved about the issues and realities of responsible bio-art.  We will have a little ëextra time-outí planned to cover these issues before the end of the semester.  I will insure that only wild-type (and wild-type mutant) organisms will be used in any final projects.  I am sure this will be an educational experience for the whole class.

On a brighter note, we can forget about the Committee debacle until my next appointment, which is in another hemisphere.  Laurie Zoloth has offered to ëreviewí our applications in person:

Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2001 18:15:57 -0800
To: Adam Zaretsky <emutagen@emutagen.com>
From: "Laurie Zoloth, Ph.D." <lzoloth@sfsu.edu>
Subject: Re: Art Protocols

I would love to come to see your projects!  I will be on campus on the 18th, the 19th, and even the 21st.

Laurie

So, honoring Steveís invitation towards a win-win situation, we will invite her to come to an optional coffee/class during finals week and forsake our actual applications for conceptual review.  You are welcome to attend.

Thatís all for now,
Sorry to be consistently atrocious, this one was a surprise to me.

AdamZ

I guess we are ok.

also: a fine point in case you are asked:

A new study by Casares and Mann (1998) challenges
the interpretation that the normal Antennapedia protein
is not involved in specifying legs.

Rather, it seems to be responsible for
inhibiting the production of antennae.

Hows that?

Adam

Delivered-To: emutagen@emutagen.com
Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2001 10:47:28 -0500
To: emutagen@emutagen.com (Adam Zaretsky)
From: Brad Jones <bjones@saturn.med.nyu.edu>
Subject: Re: Antennapedia in the Classroom, Literally.

Dear sir,

I have been a Drosophila biologist going on 15 years.  Drosophila melanogaster is a common species found wherever humans are found.  Yes, it is true that your escaped flies could mate with wild Drosophila, though it is unlikely that the your flies will survive living in your classroom.  They need a source of food, and to mate they need to find other flies.  The mutation that causes the antennapedia phenotype, while induced by mutagenesis in the lab, can, in theory occur naturally in wild populations. Spontaineous mutations occur naturally at a certain rate, and the antennapedia mutation has probably occurred naturally many times over the millions of years of that the fly has been in existence  You must realize that such a mutation is actually quite detrimental to the fly and will ultimately not propagate through the population, as a fly carrying such a mutation will be at a major disadvantage, and natural selection will quickly remove it.  These are sick flies and will not survive in competition with healthy flies.  In fly labs, flies get loose all the time.  Almost any mutation that is introduced will make a fly that will not last in the wild, and laboratory stocks are, in general, not healthy.  Population biologists have been studying wild Drosophila for a hundred years, and have not found any affect of laboratory strains on wild Drosophila.

There is absolutely no reason to be concerned about your antennapedia flies ruining the environment.

Sincerely,

Brad Jones.

Delivered-To: emutagen@emutagen.com
Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2001 11:47:47 -0500 (EST)
From: l sian gramates <siang@wilde.oit.umass.edu>
Subject: Re: Antennapedia in the Classroom, Literally.
To: emutagen@emutagen.com (Adam Zaretsky)
X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950824BETA PL0]

: I am a teacher at SFSU and have been using anttenapedia Drosophila to
: explain to my class about life cycle and mutagenesis.  Unfortunately,
: they were not perfectly contained and now some students are asking if
: we have destroyed the environment?  Even the department chair is a
: bit worried about safety.  That is probably because we are in the Art
: Department, not Biology.  What should I tell them?

The short answer is that they have absolutely nothing to worry about.

The longer answer is that mutant Drosophila (including Antennapedia)
exist at a low level in the wild, and always have.  Mutant flies
routinely escape from labs.  The most likely consequence is that
they'll survive less long than their wildtype cousins.  The worst
case scenario is that they'll interbreed with the local Drosophila,
resulting in less healthy progeny, meaning less fruitflies hanging
out around the kitchen.

Dr. Sian Gramates. Ph.D.
University of Massachusetts

Delivered-To: emutagen@emutagen.com
Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2001 11:51:10 -0500
Subject: Re: Antennapedia in the Classroom, Literally.
From: Laurence von Kalm <lvonkalm@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu>
To: Adam Zaretsky <emutagen@emutagen.com>

Adam,

I guess a lot of people have already replied but in case they havenít there is absolutely no risk of any kind posed by the release your mutant flies. If anything those flies are much less able to cope in the wild than regular flies.

Laurence von Kalm
Assistant Professor
Department of Biology
University of Central Florida
Orlando, FL  32816-236

Delivered-To: emutagen@emutagen.com
X-Sender: kam@exchkc02.stowers-institute.org (Unverified)
Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2001 08:19:15 -0600
To: emutagen@emutagen.com
From: Keith Maggert <kmaggert@stowers-institute.org>
Subject: Re: Antennapedia in the Classroom, Literally.
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 08 Dec 2001 14:19:26.0760 (UTC) FILETIME=[57A9A280:01C17FF3]

First, the caveat: I am not an evolutionary biologist, but I am a Drosophila geneticist.  In answer to your question, I think that there is almost no risk.  Antp is a pretty sick stock, especially if it's also marked with ebony [very dark bodies], as most are.  If some got out, I don't think they would have a prayer of survival.  And, since it's dominant, even if it _did_ happen to mate or lay a few eggs, the affected progeny would be immediately ill (no heterozygosis to cover that mutation!).  If you are really concerned, try putting an Antp fly in with a lot of wild-type flies, and see how many Antp appear in the next generation.  Do this for a few generations, and I'd be surprised if you had any.

Most of us discard of flies in morgues (bottles filled with mineral oil or ethanol), but not all do.  Many Drosphilists just dump them in the trash.  The stocks that we have, compared side-by-side to "wild" Drosphila are so pathetically weak that even our heftiest flies are no match.

Keith Maggert, Ph.D.
The Stowers Institute for Medical Research
Kansas City, MO 64110
kmaggert@stowers-institute.org

Delivered-To: emutagen@emutagen.com
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 21:02:06 -0700
From: locke <Mcdermid_locke@v-wave.com>
Reply-To: Mcdermid_locke@v-wave.com
Organization: home
X-Accept-Language: en
To: Adam Zaretsky <emutagen@emutagen.com>
Subject: Re: Antennapedia in the Classroom, Literally.

Adam,

I am a researcher in the field of Drosophila genetics and have worked with mutations like Antennapedia. I work at the University of Alberta in the Biological Sciences Dept.

From your post below, I take it that you have let loose some Drosophila fruit flies that have Antennapedia mutations. This is not an environmental or safety hazard. The flies with these mutations will probably die "in the wild" before procreating. Even if they do survive the Antennapedia mutation will put them at a severe reproductive disadvantage and the mutation will be lost from the "wild" population very quickly. Even though this not a problem it is still not a good idea to let them escape. Your students can be assured that their escape has not destroyed the environment (except the few the are flying around and get into your coffee cups) and your dept. chair can be assured that they are not a safety problem either. You can eat them and there is no danger. We often find them in our coffee cups and sometimes not (it was too late - down they go).

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,
John Locke
john.locke@ualberta.ca

PS: Why is a CIA teacher "explaining to my class about life cycle and mutagenesis"?

Lawrence,

You can write directly to me if you like.  I appreciate your criticism and even your rowdy textual style.  You also have brought up some fine points.

As far as the mutant flies, they are an Antennapedia strain of D. melanogaster, (vinegar flies not fruit flies) order # WW-17-2470 at https://www3.carolina.com/onlinecatalog/ $5.30 Per culture.  I do think they are cleared for use with K through 12 but that does not excuse my laxity in training the students to keep them more properly contained.†

I wrote this to Sylvia and I meant it:

"I am woeful about any unintentional release as it makes bio-artists look irresponsible.  I feel badly for not making the students involved more aware of the importance of understanding their potential to permanently effect hereditary morphological remodeling according to human will and desire (even unintentionality) in the environment as we think we know it.  I am not even sure what I have allowed take place."†

The fact that 3 PhDs said we had done nothing wrong was just the standard pat answer, thats why their responses were so similar.
It seems that scientific pompous belittling of intuitive risk assessors aids artists who are incompetent and lack intergenerational foresight as well.

Interdisciplinary introgressive permission granted at SFSU.

A recent article in nature:

Transgenic DNA introgressed into traditional maize landraces in Oaxaca, Mexico

                                  David Quist, Ignacio H. Chapela
                                  SUMMARY: Concerns have been raised about the potential effects of transgenic introductions on the genetic diversity of crop landraces and wild relatives in areas of...

                                  CONTEXT: ... (Popular Subsistence), which distributes subsidized food throughout the country. Negative controls were cob samples of blue maize from the Cuzco Valley in Peru (P1) and a 20-seed sample from an historical collection obtained in the ......

                                  Nature414, 541 - 543 (29 Nov 2001) Letters to Editor
 †††††††††††††††††††††††††††
A breif:

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2001/11/29_corn.htm†††††††††††††††
 ††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††

                                Transgenic DNA discovered in native Mexican corn, according to a new study by UC Berkeley researchers
                                29 November 2001

                                By Sarah Yang, Media Relations

                                Berkeley - Some of Mexico's native varieties of corn grown in remote regions have been contaminated by transgenic DNA, a finding that has both surprised and dismayed the University of California, Berkeley, researchers who made the discovery.

                                "This is very serious because the region where our samples were taken are known for their diverse varieties of native corn, which is something that absolutely needs to be protected," said Ignacio Chapela, assistant professor of microbial ecology in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management at UC Berkeley's College of Natural Resources.

                                In the study, published Thursday (Nov. 29) in the journal Nature, Chapela and David Quist, lead author and UC Berkeley graduate student in environmental science, policy and management, compared indigenous corn with samples known to be free from genetic engineering as well as with genetically modified varieties.

                                The native corn, or "criollo," samples were taken from four fields in the remote, mountainous region of Sierra Norte de Oaxaca. Control samples that had not been genetically modified came from blue maize grown in the Cuzco Valley in Peru, and also from a collection of seeds from the Sierra Norte de Oaxaca region taken in 1971, before the advent of transgenic crops.

                                Using highly sensitive polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based tests, the researchers checked for various elements of transgenic DNA constructs used when bioengineered genes are introduced into a plant genome.

                                They found no signs of transgenic DNA in the Peru and 1971 seed collection. In the criollo samples, however, four out of six samples tested showed weak but clear evidence of p-35S, a promoter from the cauliflower mosaic virus widely used in transgenic crops. When they sequenced the DNA of the transgenic-positive criollo samples, the researchers found that the CMV promoter matched those used in commercial transgenic crops.

                                The presence of the nopaline synthase terminator sequence (T-NOS) from Agrobacterium tumefasciens, another telltale sign of transgenic contamination, was detected in two of the six criollo samples tested. One criollo sample tested positive for the actual cry-1A gene of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), the insecticidal bacterium that kills pests feeding on corn.

                                "I repeated the tests at least three times to make sure I wasn't getting false-positives," said Quist. "It was initially hard to believe that corn in such a remote region
                                would have tested positive."

                                Chapela and Quist said the contamination likely came from multiple pollinations over time. They were able to identify the DNA fragments flanking the CMV promoter sequence through inverse PCR tests. Those fragments were diverse, suggesting a random insertion of the transgenic sequence into the maize genome.

                                "If this contamination was the result of a single gene transfer event, we would expect to find the transgenic DNA in a consistent location on the criollo genome," said Quist. "Instead, we're finding it at different points along the genome."

                                The researchers first detected the transgenic DNA in October 2000 while working with the Mycological Facility in Oaxaca, a locally-run biological laboratory where Chapela serves as the scientific director.

                                Soon after the initial discovery of the transgenic contamination, Chapela alerted the Mexican government, which then proceeded to conduct its own tests. Reporting the results in a September press release, Mexico's Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources found transgenic DNA in three to 10 percent of the Sierra Norte de Oaxaca maize, supporting the results of the UC Berkeley researchers.

                                Just how the contamination occurred remains a puzzle. Agricultural experts and proponents of biotech crops maintain that corn pollen is characteristically heavy, so it doesn't blow far from corn fields by the wind. Chapela said this assumption may need to be reevaluated in light of the recent findings in Mexico.

                                In addition, Mexico imposed a moratorium in 1998 on new plantings of transgenic maize. The closest region where bioengineered corn was ever known to have been planted is 60 miles away from the Sierra Norte de Oaxaca fields, said Chapela.

                                "It's not clear if the moratorium was poorly enforced, or if the contamination occurred before the moratorium was enacted," said Chapela. While new plantings are banned in Mexico, it is still legal to import biotech corn into the country. "Whatever the source, it's clear that genes are somehow moving from bioengineered corn to native corn," he said.

                                Such a prospect is almost certain to fuel the already contentious debate over the use of genetically modified crops. Proponents of transgenic agriculture say biotechnology helps to increase crop yields for feeding a rapidly growing world population, improve the food's nutritional value and reduce the use of pesticides.

                                Opponents say not enough is known about the health and ecological effects of biotech crops and that the risks outweigh the benefits.

                                To date, more than 30 million hectares of transgenic crops have been grown, according to "Transgenic Plants and World Agriculture," a white paper published in 2000 by a group of seven national science academies around the world, including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London.

                                Genes from genetically modified crops that spread unintentionally can threaten the diversity of natural crops by crowding out native plants, said Chapela. A wealth of maize varieties has been cultivated over thousands of years in the Sierra Norte de Oaxaca region, providing an invaluable "bank account" of genetic diversity, he said.
                                
Chapela added that genetically diverse crops are less vulnerable to disease, pest outbreaks and climatic changes.

                                "We can't afford to lose that resource," said Chapela.

I would continue your critical stance and research further.  A nice start might be to email letters to the following PhDs that poopooed your worries.  They got me off the hookwith their degrees and their authoritative stance, btu I still dont know the effects of what I have done.  Some points of contention: Spontaneous mutation occurs naturally at a certain rate. THere may be one organic Antennapedia on the planet, but we had over 500 upstairs.  Natural selection does not remove detrimental inherited mutations as all animals have a propensity to inherited disease.  There are easy ways to critique the laxity of release/containment practices.  I am willing to meet with you, even though you have preJudged me so harshly.  First off, You are right to a certain extent.  Second, I spammed you a bit so I deserve a flame for it.  Third, I would like to help you in your critique of certain forms of environmental idiocy.  I may not be an enemy.  Instead I may be a thinly veiled green agent, a sadistic, sardonic mock-neophyte antihero.  It is just acting, performative attitude.  I have spent two years in a lab but I have also spent two years as an organic farmer.  Nonetheless, the release of antennapedia was not just an act or a metaphor.  It is a symbolic equality of corruption as deed.  The flies or their progeny (or certain alleles in their progeny) may exist all over Northern California right now and for eternity in a hereditary cascade of unknown effect due to my failure to teach Mike the importance of containment.  Oh well,  Its spooky but its to late to take back.  This is not symbolism or metaphorical art, this is the dream (or nightmare) become real.  Lifting off the canvas and into the air, the leg-headed flies are humping wild types on a Baby Ruth wrapper in a trash can near a beautiful vista point in the Presidio.  If you would like to try the experiment of putting an Antp fly in with a lot of wild-type flies, and see how many Antp appear in the next generation, I will have more antennapedia this week.  I would suggest putting a few Wild Type fly in with a lot of ANTP flies, and see how many Antp appear in the next generation.  That is stacking the deck in your favor but could prove that intermingling can produce hybrids that are wild, competitive and demented morphologically.

Ask David Quist, Ignacio H. Chapela at UC Berkeley if Antennapedia are safe for the environment.  I mean it, email them, call them, go to their offices and ask.  I bet you will get a much different answer.  Perhaps it will bolster your argument?

I dont know if you expected such a warm reaction?  I do think you stance is righteous.  Continue, even if it means trashing me!

Adam Z

Delivered-To: emutagen@emutagen.com
X-Originating-IP: [65.141.28.87]
Reply-To: andrea@chinstroke.com
From: "Andrea Rester" <arester@hotmail.com>
To: emutagen@emutagen.com
Bcc: 
Subject: Taken from my online diary--you should read the sex parts WOW
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 07:09:11 +0000
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 21 Dec 2001 07:09:12.0204 (UTC) FILETIME=[645BBCC0:01C189EE]

Adam. I canÇt remember how we actually met. 22 and I watched him, a suzerain and his cortege float across the campus; their voices loud and their life blood pouring out in an effluvium of uncontainable and therefore unrestrained superiority fused with hostility. The underpinnings of this temperament still sit within him, confined by loss and life. It is different somehow but still swirls around him swinging and hitting with intention.

There is always great animosity hurled in his general direction. I have heard it on the edges of tongues that prattle his name. I have been angry at him but only because we are so much alike. Selfish with huge egos that blast their way into peopleÇs lives demanding attention and refusing absolutely to be ignored and so childish are we both that it surprises us to experience anything less than contempt. We are both brilliant asinine comrades and exist as an apotheosis for one another. We are brother and sister and therefore exist in contemptuous love exist in hate exist with and without one another. I canÇt stand him. He sees me for who I am and therefore I feel nothing.
Yesterday I went to say goodbye. He flies away to further fill the young with what they come to school to pay witness to.

I ring up to find out if I can bring Igor.

Can I bring a 14lb dog to this engagement?

Long pause. Yes, I suppose so. We are killing and eating a small rabbit today. I think a dog would be ok. Is that your contribution to the meal?

But none of you understand that this is a serious question here in Adamland and I laud him for it. He pleads with people to be shocked by his mien and they are. People rise up in hysterics at his shows, denigrating his actions. His application is calm in its viciousness. He always manages to somehow answer up to the hysteria because there is always an answer. Always.

I arrive. I eat. I smoke (started again because I was simply too happy with myself) and this is what happens. A Young Man, a student of AdamÇs is completing his final off campus because what he is about to do is illegal on school property. The dining room table is removed and the floor is layered in blue tarp. A white plastic pickle bucket sits beneath a post clamped to the open window from which dangle two hangman's nooses miniaturized so each may hold the foot of a rabbit as its blood flows from it.

The room cleared with the announcement that the killing of the bunny was about to commence. Over 2/3Çs of the guests departed. Six of us were left to circle around the killing area. The young man holds the white bunny in his arms and strokes him.

I shut Igor into the bathroom. Adam starts filming.

The Young Man begins by describing the origins of his project.

At Safeway I am waiting in line at the butcherÇs area and someone ordered a catfish. You know how they have the live catfish swimming in the grayish water. They killed it there on the block. It was gory. Guts and blood splattering everywhere. The man in front of me protested loudly.
This is abhorrent. This is disgusting. I will not shop here.
He left. I asked the butcher what the protestor was about to order.
A salmon steak.

I am a meat eater. This project will allow me to continue to eating meat. I donÇt think I really have a right to eat it unless I have the guts to kill it.

The Young Man went into acute detail about what he was about to do to the bunny. The bunny with hind feet made for stomping slumped limply in the young manÇs arms. The stroking so calming, itÇs vulnerability aching for all to feel. The Young Man spoke with an acuity and firmness alien to one so tender of age. I will do this. I will. I couldnÇt believe what courage he had. I fell in love with him in an instant. This Young Man with so much integrity standing there in front of the camera committing such a detestable and gruesome act.

I will hang him upside down holding his hind feet with one hand and his head with the other. I will then exert enough force to twist and break his neck with my right hand. I really hope I can do this on the first try. It takes quite a bit of force. I practiced on one last night. Mr. Jones at the rabbit factory was a bit suspicious that I wanted a rabbit to kill and eat. He suggested that I might have a snake at home. Quite a normal fellow really. Not handsome enough to be in a movie, perhaps a documentary? Mr. Jones told me that the kill should be quick or the adrenaline would ruin make the meat touch. After his neck is broken, I will hang him upside down from this pole. His body will convulse for awhile. After it stops I will proceed to cut off his head and his front paws. I will then slice him here and here (pointing to the rabbitÇs ankles and shoulders). I will pull the skin down in one swift motion and cut out the internal organs.

Is everyone ready?

IÇm not. I muttered. I wasnÇt ready.

You donÇt have to watch if you donÇt think you are ready.

No, you see, I should watch this. I must watch this because if I donÇt I will know I am weak. I am fake. 

I am dishonest if I cannot watch this. I need to watch this.

The bunny sits there. It has no choice. It is white and itÇs eyes are red and puffy as though the previous evening had been spent in paroxysms of tears. The Young Man does as he said. It is over in a matter of minutes. Hung, head removed and skin being pulled away. It appears a naked little man dangling upside down in his little bunny shoes.

The silence is respectful. We are mourning. I admire the Young Man more than I have admired anyone in my entire life. I admire his conviction and his courage. I think to myself that only Adam could have cultivated this sort of action. Only he could have pushed for it and given the Young Man what he really came to school for.

How does everyone feel?

I release Igor from the bathroom. He senses something. I macerate the kidneys and stomach for him because the young man wants every part of this bunny to be used. I lay claim to the lucky rabbit's foot. I hold it in my hand. It is warm. The edges of the white fur are matted with globs of blood and gore. I feel like crying but not really. I hate them. But not really. I donÇt feel anything. But I do. I feel horrible because I am unaffected. I place the foot in salt. I try to feel somber. I act somber in order to feel it. We are outside smoking. The guts wrapped in a plastic garbage bag and sepulchered in a plastic trashcan outside. People mummer death. People mummer life.

I am glad he picked a bunny.

Why?

I canÇt think of another animal more appropriate. It is so close to being a pet that it really is a vulgar kill.
I leave after a bit more talk. I nibble on a pot cookie. I want to see if I can think differently. I journey home to try and feel things. When I get home I realize that I have left my lucky rabbitÇs foot behind sitting in a plastic Ziplock bag on the dining room table.

Andrea Rester
www.chinstroke.com
An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.
--Ernest Hemingway

UnMediated Vision at Salina Art Center explores blurring of boundaries   

http://www.salinaartcenter.org/uv/workhorse_site/wwww.html

UnMediated Vision, a new exhibition about art, science, technology and
culture curated by Art Center exhibition coordinator Stacy Switzer, will
focus on artists using biotech and surveillance technologies. Video,
installations, web-based projects, performance and documentation by American
and international artists will consider the expansion and redefinition of
what we call "nature" and related issues of real/virtual, organic/inorganic,
public/private.

The exhibition will include a residency by artist Adam Zaretsky, professor
of Conceptual and Information Arts at San Francisco State University.
Zaretsky will construct and live in a portable cleanroom in the Art Center
gallery for a week as part of his installation, "Workhorse Zoo."

Zaretsky will literally surround himself with the "work horses" of molecular
biology: the animals and plants used in labs which bear the brunt of
scientific examination and invasiveness: flies, mice, fish, frogs, bacteria.
The artist hopes to introduce the public to these species, perhaps as an aid
toward intelligent discussion about animal research, and to compare the
division between artificial and natural worlds. Zaretsky says, "Much of the
public has little or no idea how much the study of these select strains
affects their health and potential physical future. These are the
evolutionary templates whom we search for homologies to assess our own
inherited pains." Zaretsky has been a research affiliate at the Laboratory
for Industrial Microbiology and Fermentation, Department of Biology, at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Zaretsky will be available for
interviews beginning Jan. 14.

Bay Area Artist, Julia Reodica, is also a Life Sciences Intern and Exhibit
Facilitator at the Exploratorium, San Francisco, California.  She will be
the Workhorse Zookeeper during the weeklong performance at the Salina
Art Center.  As a collaborator in Adam's performance, she will interact
with the public, maintain the organisms in the various developmental
stages of their life cycles and take on various performative roles as she
sees fit.

Description: We feel a strong desire to surround ourselves with the most known and least know organisms on earth, the industrial workhorses of molecular biology.  When we say surround ourselves, we mean in a teeming and messy way, flies and worms and frogs.  We have filled a portable cleanroom (an aseptic containment facility) with the least aseptic barrage of industrial life possible. The 8 foot by 8 foot Simplex Isolation System CleanRoom houses a variety of the workhorses of Molecular Biology together in  environment of coexistence and natural integration.   These organisms include: Escherichia coli (bacteria), Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Brewerís Yeast), Drosophila melanogaster (vinegar fly), Caenorhabditis elegans (round worm), Wheat and Arabidopsis thaliana (mustard plant), Danio rerio (Zebrafish), Xenopus laevis (African Claw Toed Frog), Mus musculus (Mice) and Homo sapiens (human).  In a strange way we are demented naturalists, as is nature in many ways.  So, more than any essential anality on either side lets set a this is bioart as a love for slimy, gooey, sticky, pulsating, throbbing, jumping, flapping, living and dying, eating and having sex, Everyday Life.†††††

Public Knowledge Purpose: To introduce the public these particular species in an installation environment.  we feel as if the display of these animals, (they are wild type, not genetically modified but the fish, frogs and mice could are wild-type albinos), in a spectator arena is an aid towards intelligent discussion about animal research, pro or con, without the moral superiority of pat answers.  These are the organisms that shoulder the brunt of scientific invasiveness. These are the organisms whose genomes have been sequenced and partially annotated.  These are the evolutionary templates with whom we search for homologies to assess our own inherited pains.  Much of the public has little or no idea how much the study of these select strains effects their health and potential physical future.

Personal Knowledge Purpose: To get to know the life cycle and habitat of most of the major WorkHorses of the modern Life Sciences.  In particular, the organisms with completed genomes are in the repertoire.  We want to learn the lab protocols for keeping these funky guys alive.  And, we want to understand the original conditions of their environment outside of the lab.  My preference for learning both habitats is to be able to blend perfect lab conditions with things like soil and gardens.  Finally, I am not sure of the interactions between these organisms and look forward to finding out how dynamic this complex semi-closed system will be.

Artistic Purpose: To show an exuberance of life in an environment at once artistic, scientistic and ënaturalí. To compare or perhaps exacerbate the division between natural and artificial worlds. To compare the concepts of Nature and Domesticity by a museumified version of the wild being presented under NIH standard biological rules of containment (HEPA Filters!)  To fall in love with these particular strains as they may be a big part of our lifeís work.

The workhorse Zoo had 9 organisms cohabitating in an 8' X 8' X 8' HEPA Filtered space.
including Escherichia coli (bacteria), Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Brewerís Yeast), Drosophila melanogaster (vinegar fly), Caenorhabditis elegans (round worm), Arabidopsis thaliana (mustard plant), local wheat, Danio rerio (Zebrafish), Xenopus laevis (African Claw Toed Frog), Mus musculus (Mice) and Homo sapiens (human).†

These organisms were all ordered and shipped through the mail from laboratory grade sources except for the Zebrafish which were a wholesale purchased through a pet distributor.

The human was not air mailed but instead was a consenting and informed Homo Sapiens who boarded a plane to Salina Kansas voluntarily.

 For the seven days of the Workhorse Zoo, each organism was given a favorable micro-environment similar to both natural and ordinary laboratory niches.  These  micro-environments overlap so inter-species socializing can occur.

 During the first five days of this cohabitation art-installation all the animals were fed processed food and water was provided. 

During the sixth and seventh days water was provided for the mice and humans and the multi-species environmental care was continued but processed food was withheld.  Live interactive foraging for all the organisms was observed if not encouraged.

The mice ate wheat and Arabidopsis.  The frogs ate fish.  The fish ate worms and flies.  The human ate frogs, mice, wheat and Arabidopsis.  The flies ate yeast. Etc.

On the Eighth Day The Homo Sapiens left the 8' X 8' X 8' Clean Room after eating baby food and an apple.  The other 8 organisms remain in the Glass House for another seven weeks.  The museum staff feeds them and takes care of the environmental upkeep. 

At the end of the show, the vertebrates will have to continue their existence in another environment.  The Local Zoo is considering taking the Fish and the Frogs.  The Local Pet Store may take the Mice.  A National Park in Africa has been contacted and the Albino African Xenopus Claw Toed Frogs are being considered for a reintegration in their original environs.
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The Organisms
  E. coli
  C. cerevisiae
  A. Thaliana
  C. elegans
  D. melanogaster
  D. rerio
  X. laevis
  M. musculus
  H. sapiens 
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humanThe Workhorse Zoo
CD-1 mouseThe Workhorse Zoo
Xenopus LaevisThe Workhorse Zoo
DrosophilaThe Workhorse Zoo
ZebrafishThe Workhorse Zoo
Julia and wormsThe Workhorse Zoo
Mustard Plant Arabidopsis thaliana
C. cerevisiaeThe Workhorse Zoo
E. coli bacteriaThe Workhorse Zoo

E. coli
E. coli is a strain of bacteria found in the gastrointestinal tract of many animals, including humans. This strain was actually isolated from a human fecal sample. It is estimated that one third of your solid excrement is living E. coli. They are very tiny. They look like hotdogs. 

There are strains of E. coli that are harmful, even deadly. Some of them produce toxins that can cause food poisoning. Usually this is due to the mishandling of meat. The strain of E. coli used the Workhorse Zoo in is known as K-12. Related strains are found inside of most humans. These are bacteria that aid you in your digestion of what you eat. Some of them even protect you from foreign bacterial dangers. K-12 is usually a symbiotic organism. It is not a pathogenic strain. Of course some researchers might disagree. http://www.biotech-info.net/ecoli_GE.html

These cells are also not genetically engineered. K-12 is a wild-type, which means it was found outside of the lab and kept as a control organism to compare to genetic variants produced from the original stock of K-12. These alterations can be done for research, profit and even for a sense of beauty. K-12 represents a starting point from which repeatable bacterial experimentation can begin.

This particular strain has a whole history of industrial uses. It is probably the most manipulated bacteria on the planet. E. coli is used as a metabolic factory to convert simple mixtures of chemicals into more complex products. It was one of the first organisms to have its full genome sequenced. Many of our vitamins, other supplements (i.e. MSG) and quite a few pharmaceuticals are derivatives of massive fermentations of fine tuned E. coli concoctions.<
http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/dlc-me/zoo/ AND http://www.asmusa.org/mbrsrc/archive/SIGNIFICANT.htm 

E. coli is also one of the major organisms that are utilized during the process of sequencing the genomes of other organisms, including The Human Genome Project. (http://www.er.doe.gov/production/ober/hug_top.html) Loops of DNA (also known as plasmids) are often inserted into these bacteria. The bacteria then divide at an exponential rate thereby cloning the original sequence many times. In some ways they are used as the Xerox machines of industrial microbiology.

E. coli may be the backbone of industrial fermentation, but they are also quite curious creatures. Although they replicate asexually, there are hairy ones (F. +) and ones without hair (or F. -.) and some times they get together and practice something called conjugation. When a hairy E. coli touches a hairless E coli, the connecting hair becomes erect and DNA shoots through the hollow hair or 'pilus' and into the hairless strain's cytoplasm. This transfer of DNA represents a kind of microbial sex. After the genetic injection, the hairless E. coli will begin to grow hairs of its own. Hair will grow on all subsequent generations and they will pass hairiness on to all hairless E. coli with which they conjugate. http://www.emunix.emich.edu/~rwinning/genetics/bactrec2.htm 

Yeast
C. cerevisiae is commonly known as yeast. You can use it to make beer and bake bread. 

Arabidopsis thaliana (mustard plant)
Although Arabidopsis Thaliana has been studied for over a hundred years, its consideration as a model organism began with a scientist named F. Laibach in 1943. It is a weed from the mustard family. It is not a cash crop. But in most cases, before any work is done genetically engineering a new trait for a cash crop, Arabidopsis is studied first. 

"Findings should be applicable to other plants, possibly to different organisms. A tool should be efficient and convenient, providing maximum information with minimal requirements for labor, facilities and expenditures." (http://arabidopsis.org/info/aboutarabidopsis.html) 

Other plant workhorses: Antirrhinum (snapdragon) Crops: Wheat, rice soy, corn sorghum Drugs: tobacco, poppy, coffee, marijuana and chocolate. 

Why Mustard? : I am of the opinion that most of these workhorses were not chosen by accident, efficiency or ease alone. Each workhorse represents aesthetic choices, even a certain kind of charisma on the organism's account. The mustard family, in particular, is laden with implicit and explicit symbolism due it its central role in one of Jesus Christ's parables. It is not impossible that the choice of this workhorse was influenced Dr. Laibach's personal interpretation of The Parable of the Mustard Seed. The seeds are very small, almost microscopic. The plants seem innocuous at first as well. But each plant is quite fertile, producing as many as 5000 seeds in a one month cycle. This little plant is also quite adept at 'spreading the word' as its genome has been sequenced and there are more papers on the web about the little mustard seed than any other plant in the world. http://www.arabidopsis.com/ 

The genetic control of flower organ development in Arabidopsis and has been studied extensively. Mutants are available which produce only stamens or only pistils instead of both. Mutants are available that produce extra flowers and mutants are available which fail to produce petals. Profit motives can be realized through control of speed, number and placement of fruiting bodies on a plant. Control of sexual expression in floral development can also be read as a perverted monomania. This does not in any way delimit the potential of this erotic focus to create hyper-yields from our fields. 

As usual, it depends how and why technology is yielded. As usual, it also depends what kind of profit is the goal. It is not unusual for the vitalphiliac (lover of life) obsession to spur cultivated results. Just look at the concentrated hybridization that created corn from common grass. It is also a habitual compulsion which finds these incredible results bought off by the equally perverse but much more boring fetish of amassing as much capital as possible. Community of Mind and the Mother's of Invention are not solely in existence to be brought to market. Market value is actually too fickle and tasteless an avenue for most invention. A broader view of Life Science might include some of that far sighted stewardship that gets talked about here in Salina Kansas at The Land Institute. http://www.landinstitute.org

Smart Worms:
Caenorhabditis Elegans as Ideal Models 
Earthworms, mealworms, night crawlers... these are familiar worms to us all. Earthworms may evoke a nervous response from the timid or to a fisherman they may represent satisfying live bait. Their miniscule relative, Caenorhabditis Elegans (C. Elegans) has become a giant in the field of microbiology and research.
Wild type C. Elegans are tiny, nearly microscopic nematodes (worms) that live in the soil all around us, especially in temperate regions. Although small in size (about 1mm, the length of Abraham Lincoln's nose on a penny), it is a hearty round worm that has become one of the most important model organisms in the area of developmental genetics. In 1963, molecular biologist, Sydney Brenner, introduced the nematode as an efficient and reproductively bountiful research tool in biology and neurology. He acknowledged the importance and need of ideal model organisms for successful research and development. Despite the nematode's simple make-up, there is little repeated DNA in the genome, which makes it a good example of completed sequencing (http://elegans.swmed.edu/Sydney.html). The Riddle Lab in Missouri, documents that the "C. Elegans is about as primitive an organism that exists which nonetheless shares many of the essential biological characteristics that are central problems of human biology (http://biotech.missouri.edu/Dauer-World)."
But why study this worm? Even though the worm's physical make-up is simple, there is a complexity of the different sexes, organs and reproduction that has helped answer questions of cell migration, longevity and cell fate.
In the search of the proverbial fountain of youth, the Kenyon Lab at UC San Francisco, Ca has found genes that regulate aging. The C. Elegans, when faced with impending overpopulation or starvation will produce a "dauer" larvae (German for "endurance"). That generation will slow down motility and even aging in a sort of suspended animation until sufficient space and food resources are recovered (http://wormworld.ucsf.edu).
The C. Elegans have two sexes: a self-fertilizing hermaphrodite and a male. The adult is essentially a tube containing a pharynx, gut and reproductive system that makes for over 60% of the worm's body. Cell fate research benefits from the simple reproductive system. Anchor cells that assign body parts can be manipulated through laser ablation to see what stage the cells will or will not begin its "programming." In the hermaphrodite, anchor cells around the vulva area were ablated in the embryonic state. The result was a "squashed vulva" in the adult making it impossible to lay eggs. The eggs hatch out inside the adult body causing a "bag of worms" effect and the young must burst out of their maternal home.
Humans and worms have many similarities. These similarities make the nematode useful in the study of human diseases and how to improve or develop treatments for these conditions. Discoveries help the quality of life and perhaps answer queries of better health care and management. They are also really squiggly and fun to look at.
Here is a famous letter where Sydney Brenner spelled out his desire to map and trace the lineage of every cell of the adult worm:

Differentiation in a Nematode Worm
Part of the success of molecular genetics was due to the use of extremely simple organisms which could be handled in large numbers: bacteria and bacterial viruses. The processes of genetic replication and transcription, of genetic recombination and mutagenesis, and the synthesis of enzymes could be studied there in their most elementary form, and, having once been discovered, their applicability to the higher forms of life could be tested afterwards. We should like to attack the problem of cellular development in a similar fashion, choosing the simplest possible differentiated organism and subjecting it to the analytical methods of microbial genetics.
Thus we want a multicellular organism which has a short life cycle, can be easily cultivated, and is small enough to be handled in large numbers, like a micro-organism. It should have relatively few cells, so that exhaustive studies of lineage and patterns can be made, and should be amenable to genetic analysis.
We think we have a good candidate in the form of a small nematode worm, Caenorhabditis briggsae, which has the following properties. It is a self-fertilizing hermaphrodite, and sexual propagation is therefore independent of population size. Males are also found (0.1%), which can fertilize the hermaphrodites, allowing stocks to be constructed by genetic crosses. Each worm lays up to 200 eggs which hatch in buffer in twelve hours, producing larvae 80 microns in length. These larvae grow to a length of 1 mm in three and a half days, and reach sexual maturity. However, there is no increase in cell number, only in cell mass. The number of nuclei becomes constant at a late stage in development, and divisions occur only in the germ line. Although the total number of cells is only about a thousand, the organism is differentiated and has an epidermis, intestine, excretory system, nerve and muscle cells. Reports in the literature describe the approximate number of cells as follows: 200 cells in the gut, 200 epidermal cells, 60 muscle cells, 200 nerve cells. The organism normally feeds on bacteria, but can also be grown in large quantities in liver extract broth. It has not yet been grown in a defined synthetic medium.
To start with we propose to identify every cell in the worm and trace lineages. We shall also investigate the constancy of development and study its control by looking for mutants.
The words of Sydney Brenner, 1963 from The Nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, WB Wood and the community of C elegans researchers, eds., Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, 1988.
Nematode Mutant Vulva References

Aroian, R. V., Koga, M., Mendel, J. E., Ohshima, Y. & Sternberg, P. W. 1990 The let-23 gene necessary for Caenorhabditis elegans vulval induction encodes a tyrosine kinase of the EGF receptor family. Nature 348, 693-699.
Beitel, G. J., Clark, S. G. & Horvitz, H. R. 1990 Caenorhabditis elegans ras gene let-60 acts as a switch in the pathway of vulval induction. Nature 348, 503-509.
Ferguson, E. L., Sternberg, P. W. & Horvitz, H. R. 1987 A genetic pathway for the specification of the vulval cell lineages of Caenorhabditis elegans. Nature 326, 259-267.
Horvitz, H. R. & Sternberg, P. W. 1991 Multiple intercellular signalling systems control the development of the Caenorhabditis elegans vulva. Nature 351, 535-541.
Kenyon, C. 1995 A perfect vulva every time: Gradients and signalling cascades in C. elegans. Cell 82, 171-174.
Kenyon, C. & Kamb, A. 1989 Cellular dialogs during development. Cell 58, 607-608.
Simske, J. S. & Kim, S. K. 1995 Sequential signalling during Caenorhabditis elegans vulval induction. Nature 375, 142-146.
Sternberg, P. W. 1993 Intercellular signalling and signal transduction in C. elegans. Annual Review of Genetics 27, 497-521.
Sternberg, P. W. & Horvitz, H. R. 1989 The combined action of two intercellular signalling pathways specifies three cell fates during vulval induction in C. elegans. Cell 58, 679-693.

zebra fish
These little fishies can be bought by the dozens at your local pet store. 

Vinegar Fly
Drosophila are vinegar flies, not fruit flies. They like to swarm around over ripe fruit. You may have seen some in your kitchen, usually hovering over a darkened banana. This is how they were first isolated. Around 1900 William Castle a Harvard University professor of embryology was looking for a project for a vigilant but needy grad student. He left out old grapes as bait and then just ordered the student to capture and study whatever showed up. These days Drosophila are bred in labs all over the world. They have a two week life cycle, a genome of 160 million base pairs, and the females lay about 400 eggs in their lifetime. Some of the chromosomes in their saliva producing glands are quite easy to read due to swollen landmarks that can be imaged microscopically.

The game of naming new genes in Drossophila labs is an art that deserves mentioning in this context.

The study of Homeotic genes ( also known as Hox, Pax, homeobox or Master genes) has yielded some of the more obscure and surreal mutations of developmental body plan. For most researchers this is a way of understanding how to prevent developmental birth defects. A more 'Pure Research and Development' angle would underscore the long term importance of a depth understanding of morphology and love of full-on fleshy three dimensional organismness. For me, the purpose of the radical reshaping of model organisms is just the dipping of one toe into a taboo and attractive futurity where we have the potential to permanently effect hereditary morphological remodeling of all life, including new-type models according to our human will and desire (or even our unintentionality) in the environment as we think we know it.

" Previously valued in academic labs mainly for its hardiness, availability, and rapid reproductive cycle, the fruit fly turns out to offer another bonus: genetically, it has more in common with you and me than scientists ever suspected. In a recent magazine article, a scientist described drosophilae as ''little people with wings.''

For example, even though human hearts look nothing like the fruit fly's simple, tubelike one, the same ''tin man'' gene is fundamental to building both. If a human copy of the gene is substituted in drosophila for a mutant fly gene involved in sex determination, the human DNA will supply the missing function. ''Drosophila research today is bigger than it's ever been and growing very rapidly,'' says the 52-year-old Baker. ''Back in the mid-1980s, few people would have said that humans and flies are built the same way. Yet, what the last 10 to 15 years have shown us is that the same genes working in largely the same way underlie a vast array of biological processes.''

These similarities raise worrisome questions that could affect social policy and psychological theory for generations. The research of Baker and others shows that genes in fruit flies control not only body construction but also complex sexual behaviors. Male flies with one mutant form of fruitless, for example, no longer court the opposite sex. In a test tube, half a dozen such males march in step in what Hatzidakis calls a ''conga dance.'' They're telling females, ''Shoo, fly, don't bother me.''

It is not known yet whether a similar master gene influences human courtship. Scientists have identified a gene on the Y chromosome that determines gender, but they're just starting to dissect the genetic underpinnings of sexual behavior. A recent article in the journal Science disputed earlier findings linking male homosexuality to a small region of genes on the X chromosome. If the parallels between flies and humans are stretched far enough, ethicists warn, they could justify genetic screening of job and insurance applicants not only for medical conditions but also for aggressive or antisocial propensities. Or they could lead to eugenics - breeding to reduce or eliminate behaviors that are considered undesirable. "

-- May 23 1999 Boston Globe Magazine 

 

Some amazing facts about Xenopus Laevis: 

They do not have teeth or tongues. Instead they just eat with their hands. 

The name Xenopus means Strange Foot in Latin. That is because they have five toes on each foot but only three claws on each foot.

There are about 15 lines or grooves up and down the sides most Xenopus frogs. These are sense organs but nobody is really sure what they sense or how.

Our Xenopus frogs are albino. That means they were born without any pigment in their skin or eyes. That's why they look like uncooked chicken.

More frog fun for Kids:
http://allaboutfrogs.org/info/species/clawed.html Xenopus Frogs used to be utilized mainly as an early pregnancy test. The urine of pregnant women will make them bloat and sometimes even lay eggs. Now they are used all over the world as model organisms for the study of Vertebrate Developmental Biology. All of the stages of development from conception to adult frog can be seen here:

Stages of Development: http://www-cbd.upstlse.fr/organismes/nieuwkoop/nieuwkoop.html

For an Amphibian Embryology Tutorial: http://worms.zoology.wisc.edu/frogs/mainmenu.html

Like most of the workhorses of molecular biology, Xenopus frogs are in the process of having their genome sequenced. If you would like to access some of the genome of these frogs, Axeldb is a database focusing on gene expression in the frog Xenopus laevis: http://www.dkfz-heidelberg.de/abt0135/axeldb.htm

One of the more interesting things about Xenopus research is the range of developmental abnormalities that can be induced in the lab. Developmental mutants can be made through microsurgical techniques (transplantation or explantation), chemical additives (also known as teratogens) and transgenic microinjection techniques. The grandfather of Xenopus experimental embryology is Hans Spemann who got the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the Spemann Organizer in 1935. http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/1935/spemann-bio.html

A video of a Spemann organizer Transplant can be found at: http://www.gastromaster.com/video/

For the practical vivisectionist, here is a site where you can Virtually Dissect a frog: http://www-itg.lbl.gov/cgi-bin/vfrog_script

If you would like to see an embryo engineered to have two heads there is a picture of one at: http://www.xenbase.org/intro.html

Xenopus frogs come from Africa and a national park you might want to visit some time to see them in their native environment is Mlawula Nature Reserve, Swaziland. http://www.sntc.org.sz/mla.html Plan your vacation early.

Since airfreight from Africa is expensive, we got our lab-bred albino frogs from Nasco, a major supplier and one of the Workhorse Zoo sponsors.http://www.enasco.com/prod/BrowseSummary?major=Frogs&minor=Xenopus+la s&quickkey=125&major_search_word=yes&is_search_word=item&title=Science

Recently the Hayes Lab at University of California, Berkeley has used Xenopus as a model to attempt to determine if there are any adverse effects of a pesticide that seems to be a Midwest favorite. They have had quite interesting results, which point to the possibility that we may inadvertently be giving male frogs obscure gender rerouting. This is a scoop worth investigating.

http://www.exploratorium.edu/frogs/researcher/researcher_4.html 

Mice
Most of the mice in this exhibit are CD-1 mice. They are pedigree lab mice which means that their lineage can be traced back to two male and seven female albino mice from the Laboratory of Dr. de Coulon in Switzerland. Dr. Clara Lynch of the Rockefeller Institute brought them to the US in 1926. They are now available to research institutions from Charles River Labs (1-800-LAB-RATS.) I ordered one timed pregnant (17 day) mouse and one lactating mouse with a litter (10 pups varied genders) all of the CD-1 (Copyright) Nomenclature on Jan. 21st 2002. They are wild-type albino research models. They are also just mice.

The plan to try to establish a self-sufficient experimental eco-system within the clean room exposes vertebrates to the possibility of becoming-food. Many of the organisms may be eaten by many of the other organisms. Since the outcome of any research is uncertain, the possibilities have caused qualms. Highly probable will be the eating of zebrafish by xenopus frogs (I've seen it happen.) Xenopus frogs do eat living fish in their natural environment but in the lab they are only allowed to eat processed fish pellets or cow's liver. Some people deem the use of vertebrates as live food as cruelty to animals. For others, it is crueler to never allow an animal to determine how they, with their own agency, would prefer to forage. (Foraging for loin, a major joy on earth is also a process that is usurped by many lab protocols^J transgenic procedures in particular^J with no reference to the Oedipal cruelty involved.)

The frogs and the fish also eat flies, worms and each other's eggs but since none of these are vertebrates^J embryos included... they are not covered by the animal care/rights continuum. The worms and flies, yeast and E. coli may be carnivorous in a closed system, but that part of FOOD are les explored due to size-ism. This is probably because of the dissimilarity of these organisms to the anthropocentric values of the human-centric moral systems. (A side note: Animal Rights activists join animal researchers in their predisposition to 'care on a sliding scale'. To me, Bilateral Symmetry, Spinal Columns and Brain size are arbitrary hierarchies of vital worth.)

The withholding of processed food in an environment chock full of juicy live food does not seem like abuse to me. It seems more like a process of De-Suburbanizing Research subjects. Hunting and gathering does not seem like a Luddite's suggestion for a frog or a mouse. The only avenue of nourishment available to many human urbanites is pre-masticated, faddishly shaped and repackaged/re-titled food. Perhaps a deer hunt or a lesson in living off the land would do these tunnel visionaries well.

Experimental workhorses would not eat pelletized (and web advertised) versions of their ordinary caloric intake without bourgeois (read suburban) food aesthetics. The particular version of care that fetishises popular domestication brings us right back to the Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny fallacy. The more homogenized the food is does not imply the degree of love, culture, advancement or even luxury that a domesticated animal receives.

My vision of The Zoo is still a vision of unfettered play. I will not condone over mothering as 'care.' My major concern lies with the display of more-than-ordinary, independent interactions of domesticated, laboratory animals, humans included. The artifice of the zoo is just a dichotomous abstraction of a larger vitality that is more or less, subject to containment. Animal care is not just suburban values placed on animals otherwise interrogated for utility. Care is not just taming or a 'making comfortable' these living mirrors of our assumed civility. 

This is all a disclaimer for insuring adequate food supply for our lactating mice and their pups. I do plan to add wheat to the plant workhorse crop for the new mothers in the zoo. Mice are predominantly vegetarian. They do eat meat (and even their young) when they are hungry. There is just not enough late stage Arabidopsis in the installation to make self-sufficiency for mice anything less than desperate from the start. I do believe that mice can live on Arabidopsis seeds and plants alone if the quantities were great enough. They just don't seem plentiful enough at this time to start off with even a potential equilibrium of life and death forces. Wheat is also a major workhorse and The Land Institute has been so kind as to offer some of their extra wheat so^J I wish a Happy Valentines Day to the new moms. This is sentimental. This is an admission of botched planning. This may even be last minute mothering instincts popping up. Oh well, it works for me.

Humans
Humans are just another workhorse in this zoo. We have voyeuristically exposed our own genome to become a thing of research. We utilize the partially annotated results of the Human Genome Project to reference our selves in relationship to anything and everything we learn about the other organisms in this installation.

I will be representing our genus and species in this tableau of diversity. I don't delineate much difference or superiority to Homo sapiens. We are not better or more advanced. If anything, we are just, hereditarily, a more pompous organism than the rest. We are also organisms whom are being used every day in scientific experiments, hopefully as informed human subjects. I am broadening the horizon of experimental activities to include creative acts. This does not in anyway imply that I am any more or less just towards the animals contained in the exhibit.

I can lay claim to the ideal of inclusion. I must go through the experience of living in tight quarters, relying on food from other's kindness and even hunger. But all of these privations are self-imposed. I designed this obstacle course; I ordered the animals from their respective suppliers. I put them in this silly containment zone. If we were capable of interspecies communication, I'm sure that many of the organisms would say that they would rather not be on exhibit in an artificially hungry food chain in a Clean Room in Salina this month. They will try to escape and some of them will. How is their fate decided? How am I responsible?

It is not unusual to find yourself feeling like a research subject or a pet or both at the same time these days. Some people like to think that they are even a little bit wild once in a while. But, it is an odd day when we realize that we have become symbolically interpreted by some other species as a food source. It has been a point of contention for some that there is little chance that my life will be taken to become food for any of the organisms in this exhibition. Since other animals may become food for each other or myself, how just is this installation for the organisms involved?

Most of these animals haven't seen the sun in many generations. The frogs won't eat the fish right away because they don't recognize them as food anymore. The chance for even a few of them to live in a multi-organismic airlock between the outside world (which is often unforgiving) and the laboratory (which is often unforgiving) may have a symbolic ripple effect. There may even be a workhorse morphogenetic field established. This may have a worldwide, lab animal consciousness altering effect. This does not imply that the Workhorse Zoo (or any zoo) is a perfect Eden.

My trite comparisons to TV shows like The Real World, Survivor or even that new SadoMasochistic gameshow known as The Chair do not belie a admonition on my part as to the inanity of these shows or even the Workhorse Zoo. Even in a strictly Darwinist sense, these are pallid comparisons to real ecosystems with real competition or risk. Instead, the artistic notion of artifice is implicated and stained by the inclusion of life, birth, death and food chains imbedded in what is supposed to be a mere representational display. Some of the intended annoyance is the fact that this is a show but a show that is difficult for some to take lightly.

As a display human, I am taking some risks but I am surely not much of a stunt man during this event. These risks have been calculated and my own survival is not assured but it is a probable outcome by the end of a week. I might ingest more than my usual ration of E. coli, which will continue to live inside of my body or be expulsed rather vehemently. I might have to put up with some mouse nibbles or some minor fly infestations but the cards are stacked in my favor. I may have a nasty yeast infection between my toes in the end, but I did not include a Rhesus monkey or a Chimp in this version of the zoo. If I had, I would be sleeping with one eye open. 

Instead, I am trying to make transparent much of the unspoken assumptions of our everyday lives. This zoo is an unfolded microcosm of the prevailing attitudes surrounding human relationship with the rest of the life world around us. We do try to situate ourselves at the top of the food chain. Our supposed dominance is temporary and partially imagined. And, I think it is important to remember that we are no more or less than primates with forks. We are mortal, morally fallible and made of meat. In that vein, the Zoo is not about preaching the moral high ground. It is about the freedom to be openly implicated in the environment: human, natural and sometimes ugly. 

To: Yoshie Suzuki <ysuzuk@artic.edu>
From: Adam Zaretsky <zaretsky@mit.edu>
Subject:  hi from the bubble
Cc: 
Bcc: 
X-Attachments: 

Yoshie

Thanks for the note and sorry for the silence.  Ive been working hard to put it together!  It came together well!  Im in my box now, in my yellow suit on the sunday after.  I did get your treats.  Thank You, they are proudly displayed. 

All went off without a hitch.  The show is good as is the zoo.  People gawked and we talked, often with sign language.  It sounds like I am in the bottom of a well.  I was kissed through the plastic quite a few times and even proposed to by a local girl.  After the show Julia was quite a doll, just kicking back and bringing me things I had forgotten.  Very tellingstuff for this week of displayed semi-privation.  Soap and coffee and a little basin to rinse my hands in.  I washed my hands and brushed mmy teeth and then emptied the waste into the porto-potti.  And now, this morning I have leftover coffee to microwave instead of a headache or even a habit torn heart attack.  So addicted to cheap labor for productive drugs.  We will see how that goes.

People did come after the museum closed.  They beeped a lot or parked in front.  They even got out of their cars sometimes and knocked on the window.  Almost to see if Im real.  Or more likely, that old standard, bored and nothing to do.  After the lingerers slept, I lay back in the dark and the most pastoral moment came.  The waterfall makes a quite enlightening trickling sound, like a little brook.  The wheat was moving, swaying due to nibbleing mice and finally the frogs began to sing.  That low warblinging  that first sounds like the video equiptment eating tape or a generator failing down the street.  Those three together were so soothing, Im too tacky to have been able to plan that.

Please bring me nose torture, scat, animals sex and extreme bondage tapes from chica-ville/kuki.  I got cleared to poop in the box!!! I have a little porto-potti and a big red soft plastic cone that I pull down to cover myself.  Its sunday so the museum is closed but everyone slows down in their cars and waves or stops and stares at me!  Its fun and relaxing.  I do have a waterfall and a few decorative rocks in the garden.  Its really nice and cheesy.

Thank you for thinking of me.

Kisses Adam

To: "Ditchey Yes" <ditcheyditcheyditchey@hotmail.com>
From: Adam Zaretsky <zaretsky@mit.edu>
Subject: Re: i see you....
Cc: 
Bcc: 
X-Attachments: 

Hey You Caddish Worm

Ncie to run into you youyou handsome, smegmanimous devil.  People did come after the museum closed.  They beeped a lot or parked in front.  They even got out of their cars sometimes and knocked on the window.  Almost to see if Im real. 
The mouse in my bed last night was less endearing.  Your recipe for geeking, the three bites and swallow was stirring.  Im sure you know that I think You and KC are fantastic libertines.  We shoul.d all get together and torment each other some time.  Scat and grranimals. Ask KC if I can send you pictures of her to trade for pictures of you.  Kinky?†

LEts try harder Doc Aerosmith  mmmmph!

Im knee deep in frog water.  Things are really fun.  Im smelly and spastic.  The first day was cleanroom suit day, today was techno-spazzy cleanroom day, tomorrow is bio-terror day, followed by medical day, caveman day, wild animal day and summed up with infantilism day (witha figleaf on my diaper.)  Wow, the midwest is very friendly and accomodating.  I was on Friendly Fire, a Newt Gingrich styled debate for talk radio.  I made masturbation jokes when they asked me about god.  All and all, WE were friendly too.  Photoshoots and elementry schools every day this week.  The surveillance stuff worked too.  8		 cameras switching throughout the show.

To: fonteyn@sfsu.edu
From: Adam Zaretsky <zaretsky@mit.edu>
Subject: Workhorse Zoo
Cc: lblackwo@sfsu.edu, kmorison@sfsu.edu, swalters@sfsu.edu, wlcheng@sfsu.edu, hafernik@sfsu.edu, swilson@sfsu.edu, plevine@sfsu.edu, lzoloth@sfsu.edu
Bcc: 
X-Attachments: :focii:172227:frogAce 1.jpg: :focii:172227:moomice.jpg: :focii:172227:reactions.jpg: :focii:172227:fly release8.jpg: :focii:172227:slim fast poster boy.jpg: :focii:172227:julia worm to dirt.jpg: :focii:16:bbbaav.jpg-2:

Going strong in Kansas:

Im knee deep in frog water.  Things are really fun.  Im smelly and spastic.  The first day was cleanroom suit day, today was techno-spazzy cleanroom day, tomorrow is bio-terror day, followed by medical day, caveman day, wild animal day and summed up with infantilism day (witha figleaf on my diaper.) I am in a portable clean room with a porto-potti and 8 of the major workhorses of molecular biology for a week.  No Breaks. 

Wow, the midwest is very friendly and accommodating.  I was even on Friendly Fire, a Newt Gingrich styled debate for talk radio.  I somehow made masturbation jokes when they asked me about god's plan in the re-engineering of the human genome.  All and all, WE (Julia and I) were friendly too although we did flame SFSU animal care a bit for their lack of support of non-scientific animal research.  PETA (People for the Eating of Tasty Animals) called in too!  Thursday I fry up and eat some albino xenopus.

Elementry schools visit every day this week to meet the workhorses and 'The Bubble Boy' as they have termed me.  The surveillance stuff worked too.  8		 cameras switching throughout the show.  No web cam yet but I am filling 25 tapes, ouch. 

Thanks again for conceptually reviewing our projects Laurie.  I hope SFSU will consider art as research a reality even is it is humorous or critical.  We do publish too.  

Wisdom is not based on knowledge alone 
and the Academy should be a place 
for the amassment of both.

Ill be back and available to speak the 6 or 7 of Feb.
Hope to have a firm basis for my concepts rewardingly exhibited.

Good Cheer
Adam 

Wendy:

I am feeding on three days worth of food, mostly junk food.  Tomorrow the town of salina will feed me.  We are having a picnic.  Thursday and friday I will live off the land as will all the other animals.  I expect to have one frog on thursday and many pink mice on friday, deep fried on a hotplate.  A local housemartin brooder and muskrat eater will join me for mice.  Saturday is my devolve complete infantalism born again day in the large diaper and fig leaf re-emergence.  I an uncontained and immersed so I dont need a face mask.  We all live in this isolation system together but I have bare feet and am relatively unconcerned as these creatures are lab animals second and Animals Like Us first.  You should see the mice tear down the plants like there is no tomorrow.

Im sitting here in my terrorist face mask surrounded by red terror banners and all the cars in the city are slowing down to wave to the local bio-terror actor in the window.  the mask really helps as I feel like a pay-per-view going out for free.  The mice and the frogs are also under surveillance, both here and in the lab.  Im starting to know how they feel.  I am less concerned with pain in experimentation than with the fact that the lab subjects (human subjects too) have to put up with a pornographic amount of ooggle-ing...  I mean being stared at during struggle doubles the truama of life... even when there is no scientific basis to most everyday lives.  Jerry Springer has more in common with scientific curiousity than the NIH would like to believe.

Im sitting here in my terrorist face mask surrounded by red terror banners and all the cars in the city are slowing down to wave to the local bio-terror actor in the window.  the mask really helps as I feel like a pay-per-view going out for free.  The mice and the frogs are also under surveillance, both here and in the lab.  Im starting to know how they feel.  I am less concerned with pain in experimentation than with the fact that the lab subjects (human subjects too) have to put up with a pornographic amount of ooggle-ing...  I mean being stared at during struggle doubles the truama of life... even when there is no scientific basis to most everyday lives.  Jerry Springer has more in common with scientific curiousity than the NIH would like to believe.

Im a little wierd and mostly mellow.  Some lite visual and auditory hallucinations.  I also just peed on my feet! Thats OK today is medical day.

Interview with Shana:

Meanwhile (along with the sound of one hand clapping) ponder the following general question and respond to it:
 
1. Are you an artist making fun of science or a scientist making fun of art?

There is an importance to breaking bubbles of awe around all expert cultures.  This is because hot air naturally wants to expand... I am just adjusting boundaries in a dynamic equilibrium. I am an artist who sometimes practices scientific technique to inform my work.  I teach art but I also maintain various research affiliations in biology labs.  I make fun of science and art in equal measure.  I am not anti-science or am I in awe of our favored paradigmatic methodology for this era.  I do abhor serious objectivity alone.  It has its place and its range of effectiveness. I believe the sterility of utilitarian philosophy leaves most wanting.  Instead, I would like to show that scientific thought and process is accessible to the lay public.  It is one of many ways of thinking about the meaning of interacting in the life-world.  There are other overlapping relations we have with the biosphere around us.  This installation is my way of blurring the boundaries between codified ways of defining the places where humans meet other life.  That is why this clean room contains a kitchen/bathroom/lab/zoo/wilderness all at once.

Ponder these three specific questions and respond to them:
 
2. Do you think it's possible to translate to your viewing public the experience that your art is about?
From what you've described, it seems like people are reacting in the only way they know how, as outsiders vis-a-vis a circus side-show. Is it possible to reach them on an objective level when this project seems so subjective?

3. What do you think or dream about when you're alone in the bubble late at night?

I have had dreams about doors.  The door became important early on.  I started to understand the patient trials of prisoners.  In this case, the door only locks from the inside.  I can leave any time I want.  The self imposed trial week of devolution keeps contained.  But there was a few times during the first couple of days where I stared at the door and thought of just running through it.  So much of my work is about revealing that there is no sealed vessels, no virgin ideas and therefore no fall from grace.  The idea of sticking to any ideal gives me conduct disorder cachetism.†

4. In cohabitating with these animals have you found that they have indeed lost their "naturalness" due to generations upon generations of experiments? How do they react to you?

The xenopus frogs have yet to eat any zebrafish.  I had a pet Xenopus and it ate ten in one day after it was hungry enough to try.  It never could swallow rice or beans either.  It would try and then spit them up.  (the frogs have no tongues or teeth.)

Another question: Can you slightly chronicle your sleeping habits in the clean room? And how they're affected by your cohabitators as well as your viewing public.

http://www.salinaartcenter.org/uv/adam.html

                         San Francisco man brings man-in-glass-house
                         exhibit to Salina†††

                         http://www.modbee.com/state_wire/story/1546027p-1622429c.html

				January 29, 2002 Posted: 01:05:04 PM

                         PST

                         SALINA, Kan. (AP) - It's like the MTV show "The Real World," only with animals,
                         Adam Zaretsky says of his living conditions.

                         Zaretsky is one of the featured creatures in the "Workhorse Zoo" in Salina, a
                         combination of art and science he hopes will cause people to rethink their
                         relationships with other living things.

                         Zaretsky's home is an 8-by-8-foot glass room he shares with albino frogs, families
                         of mice, microscopic worms and an actively growing yeast culture. In the exhibit,
                         Zaretsky wears a blue plastic cape, purple latex gloves, pink bunny hat, shiny gray
                         shorts, denim-blue polyester knit jacket and knee-length red-white-and-black
                         toe-socks and is know as "Zed, species Homo sapiens."

                         "This is sort of like 'The Real World' or 'Survivor,' but it's multi-species," the
                         33-year-old San Francisco conceptual artist said.

                         "I'm actually trying to blur the boundary between what is human culture and what
                         is reality," Zaretsky said, while stretched out on an ambulance gurney that he uses
                         for a bed.

                         He never leaves the enclosure, using a red tarp fitted with a hula-hoop as his
                         "privacy cone" when he uses his portable toilet.

                         Julia Reodica, who was Zaretsky's teaching assistant while he served as a visiting
                         professor at San Francisco State University, is the zookeeper.

                         "As a serious researcher, I am finding Zed temperamental and unpredictable,"
                         observed Reodica, clad in a Boy Scout uniform with long, zip-up black go-go
                         boots. "When agitated, he throws rubbish against the windows," she noted.

                         Art Center curator Stacy Switzer said when she read Zaretsky's proposal for
                         "Workhorse Zoo," she knew it would be a perfect fit with a larger exhibit she had
                         been working on for a year, titled "Unmediated Vision."

                         "We go with contemporary art. We're a little more edgy. The idea is the
                         overlapping of art and life," she said.

                         Zaretsky received a $20,000 grant to stage his weeklong "man-in-a-glass-house"
                         exhibit in Salina.

                         Next, Zaretsky heads to the University of Western Australia in Perth, to blur the
                         lines of reality there.

                         "He's poised to be a very important figure in the whole area of bio-art," Switzer
                         said.

Gail Wight <gailw@notochord.org>
From: Adam Zaretsky <zaretsky@mit.edu>
Subject: answers
Cc: 
Bcc: 
X-Attachments: :focii:185977:fun.jpg:

Hi Adam,

What are you eating?

Sat-teus was nothing but junk food, tv dinners etc
wed was help me! bring me food day.
Nothing but frogs and mice and beer I brewed in here and arabidopsis
all day living off the land thurs and friday
and sat is infant born again kicked out of the garden day
baby food and formulac

What are you going to do with those specimen bags?

That is Julia's research with qtips and other detritus

how did you negotiate with the mouse?

the mice ate my frog leftovers and everything else

Did people behave differently after church than they did before?

We will see how the bible belt likes a guy in a diaper with a fig leaf.

To: "Wendy Wolfson" <wolfsonpr@mediaone.net>
From: Adam Zaretsky <zaretsky@mit.edu>
Subject: Re: question
Cc: 
Bcc: 
X-Attachments: 

Adam and Julia,

Remember Alba the GFP bunny? At first I thought Kac's bunny was unique, his
own created art project, then I realized that there are many lab animals out
there with the gfp gene. ACT Biosciences  in Worcester has a lot of them.

yes

Could this be an indicator on how we have progressed in terms of our use of
lab animals that what used to be considered unique  is just normal lab
production of glowing bunnies, showcasing our ability to at least manipulate
a single gene (I don't think we can do multiple ones in combination yet.).
We are well on our way to manipulating these workhorse animals for our
purposes; research, drug development, etc., more so than most people think.

Multiple gene tagging for gfp, rfp and pfp in unison are common especially for developmental microscopy.   Yes, artists who learn genetics run the chance of being hoplessly  passe' and therefore showcasing the normal in new venues.  The most important thing to remember is that, like radiation in the 1920's compared to now, these technologies may not be thought of as normal or safe for release in the future.  That means the showcasing of our transgenic creations as art may be a double edged sword for bringing the public uptodate for a future purpose that may force their participation.  The ability to be able to say, 'I know about that' instead of 'its some complicated stuff thats beyond my control' is based on haveing personal experience, especially rid of obsfucation, expert thinking and authoritative attitude.  Since artists are not held in high regard, they are perfect demystifiers of needless auras.

Alba the Bunny may be already dated.

As art she is not just technology but someone's idea of beauty.  Not utility but taste.  Passe only as is the green glow of aliens in 50's SciFi.  Wait till the cetipedal purple turkeys escape onto the midwestern prairies.

To: "naokoken" <naokoken@tkh.att.ne.jp>
From: Adam Zaretsky <zaretsky@mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Recycled Chicken
Cc: 
Bcc: 
X-Attachments: :focii:16:frogAce 1.jpg:

Zublord

I got hungry and ate mice.  Someone said I slept with my brother.  Next the long haired one washed my feet and so today, I eat food for babies.  Perhaps I can give birth to your chicken.  Do you like it baked?

FoodisLumpy

??
Dear Mr. Food Artist,
 
I bought a chicken because the cupboard was bare.  The next time I opened it there was a war cannon awaiting me.  Having fulfilled my fantasy to be my own mother on Tuesday, I have decided to recycle the chicken.  Please help.
 
--Zublord

http://www.fondation-langlois.org/e/projets/618-5-2001/618-5-2001.html 

being performed right now (today is the last day, where I emerge from this SkinnerBox/CleanRoom as a baby) at the Salina Art Center in Kansas.

Im still not sure
if it is nature displayed, unsustainability displayed and or space-farming debunked. All I know is Im dressed as a baby today and I have a figleaf on my diaper.
To: "stacy switzer" <sswitzer@salinaartcenter.org>
From: Adam Zaretsky <zaretsky@mit.edu>
Subject: Re: PETA
Cc: honeysmack3@hotmail.com
Bcc: 
X-Attachments: 

Adam,
 
I have been contacted by PETA. I haven't spoken to them person-to-person yet.†Would you be willing to send me a short statement addressing†the use of animals in your piece?  It would help me be more prepared.†If they decide to make a stink, I expect they will target both artist and institution.†And what are your feelings on this?†I know we talked about PETA some, but please remind me.....
 
(e-mail to both this address and <mailto:honeysmack3@hotmail.com>honeysmack3@hotmail.com) I will be in Lawrence starting tomorrow.
 
Thanks!
Stacy
 †
Stacy Switzer
Exhibitions Coordinator
Salina Art Center
 
242 S. Santa Fe, Salina, KS 67401
(785) 827-1431

As far as the ethics goes, my feeling is, dont moralize or even explain.
Lets tell them what we did, not why we did it.
Also, lets refuse phone contact as it is too hot a medium.
This could end up a legal matter, lets stick to email,
Like the Animal Care stuff, im thinking of the final textual crustaceans.
Do they have an email?

I will cc you if you will cc me...
It is important to trust that we wont email privately to PETA
or at least that you save a record of what has been said as we may need to recollect.

For Ethical Starters... Read these carefully:

http://www.salinaartcenter.org/uv/workhorse_site/homo.html

http://www.salinaartcenter.org/uv/workhorse_site/mus.html

In a nutshell:
My major concern lies with the display of more-than-ordinary,
independent interactions of domesticated, laboratory
animals, humans included. Care is not just taming or a
'making comfortable' these living mirrors of our assumed civility.

Really I would not start with a statement like the above.
I would list the organisms involved, their sources, the care given (food and environment),
the 2 days of free range feeding including the eating of fish by frogs and fish,
frogs and mice by humans. the personas explored and finally,
the plans for the animals after the show comes down.

No moralizing, no defining sides or issues for them
just the facts...

I relish an open debate on versions of natural environment entertainment
in life showcases, food definitions and cultural bias, all sorts of things.

But they called us, a fairly heavy fine could be sought
court is not out of the question, shameful press a near sure thing.

Lets leave them to enact and we will follow and stay jolly.

Thats what I think... what do you think?

Adam

-----Original Message-----
From: Adam Zaretsky [mailto:zaretsky@mit.edu]
Sent: Sunday, April 07, 2002 11:57 PM
To: info
Cc: Julia Reodica
Subject: Workhorse Zoo Art and Life Ethics

 

Hello Amy Rhodes

This letter was sent to the Salina Art Center.  Julia and I are the artists involved in the staging of the Workhorse Zoo exhibition.  We have been instructed to accentuate that this letter in no way has anything to do with the Art Center or their policy.  Julia and I as independent performance artists suggest an e-textual debate/conversation about the Zoo, the ethics and the aesthetics of our obvious differences and perhaps the more confusing areas where our philosophies might overlap.  Would you be willing to correspond with us?

Adam Zaretsky

Delivered-To: emutagen@emutagen.com
From: "Katie Bales" <info@salinaartcenter.org>
To: <emutagen@emutagen.com>
Subject: FYI...here is the text from THE letter
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 2002 15:41:57 -0600
X-Priority: 3
Status:  

Thank you for speaking with me recently regarding calls of concern we received about "The Workhorse Zoo" exhibit that appeared at the Salina Art Center.  We share these concerns and are writing to ask that careful consideration be given to future potential exhibits that use animals.

The stated "public knowledge purpose" of the exhibit seems quite hypocritical.  The display was said to have been intended to be a catalyst to discussion about the use of animals in scientific research.  Yet, none of the horrid realities of vivisection were revealed.  Instead, the animals were subjected to a seemingly arbitrary and gratuitous display of human manipulation, masquerading as a "natural" habitat.  To make matters worse, it appears from summaries of the exhibit that the mouse population may have been allowed to grow uncontrolled and that the animals were intentionally denied proper food sources.  No where is it mentioned what would happen to the animals once the exhibit was over.

It is, at best, a farce to believe that the exhibit fostered anything other than disgust and contempt for the exhibit, the artist, and the Salina Art Center.  It surely did little other than misinform viewers about animal protection issues and about the animals' natural behaviors.

We are sure that you will agree that true works of art manifest an artist's creativity, individuality, and talent.  Drawing crowds to view work lacking artistic merit goes against the very nature of an organization that prides itself on displaying innovative and progressive work.  Surely you would not want animals to be harmed, and the art center's credibility compromised, by hollow displays of animal use.

May we please hear that the Salina Art Center will prohibit the use of animals in future displays?  Thank you in advance for your careful consideration.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Amy Rhodes

501 Front Street

Norfolk, VA 23510

(757) 622-peta

Delivered-To: mit@emutagen.com
Subject: FW: Workhorse Zoo Art and Life Ethics
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 16:02:08 -0400
Thread-Topic: Workhorse Zoo Art and Life Ethics
Thread-Index: AcHesb1PoFERceGlSQuT4TVw/ulWCgAUiMxwAD9cJfA=
From: "Amy Rhodes" <amy-r@peta.org>
To: <zaretsky@mit.edu>
Cc: <info@salinaartcenter.org>
Status:   

I would be happy to speak with you regarding the exhibit. I appreciate that you took the time to write. However, I do hope that the Salina Art Center will address the concerns we directed at the center specifically.

Amy Rhodes

Cruelty Caseworker

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

<http://www.peta.org>www.peta.org

<http://www.wildlifepimps.com>www.wildlifepimps.com

We realize that by discussing the ethical edge-workings of the Workhorse Zoo with you we are exasperating an already contentious arena.  But, looking over your publications, contention is not something you avoid.  Sometimes an artistís job is to be a royal ëfly in the ointmentí for everyone involved.  We are also used to causing a stir in order to get our point across.  We donít expect you to agree with all of our actions.  We hope you donít expect us to completely agree with you about what the definition of humaneness is at the porous membrane between our culture and the rest of the lifeworld.  

We are certainly not ashamed of our expressions.  Our pride and willingness to discuss important issues surrounding nature/culture issues and human/other relations implies a public invitation to intelligent debate.   A real dialogue has a chance of flourishing.  So lets try not to jump immediately to pat answers and shallow assumptions about this work of art.  Obviously, we have read your letter to the Salina Art Center and would love to confute many of your generalizations.   Since the letter was not directed to us, letís start with a fresh start by giving you a more in depth description how the installation was executed. We hope that our conversation can be of a quality and depth that supersedes the popular press so that any differences of opinion can be meted out for eventual public purview.  We will save our reasoning, what philosophical concepts informed the Workhorse Zoo, for the sake of our dialogical interactions.   

What follows is the first of a four part description of the Workhorse Zoo as it was enacted as a part of Unmediated Vision an exhibition curated by Stacy Switzer at the Salina Art Center in Salina, Kansas from Jan 26 to March 31, 2002.

Sincerley,
Julia Reodica and Adam Zaretsky

Intro-

The Workhorse Zoo was a display of nine of the most studied industrial organisms of Modern Molecular Biology living together in a ëglass houseí.

The Organisms:

†Bacteria - E. coli
 Yeast - C. cerevisiae
†Plants - A. Thaliana and Fresh Wheat
†Worms - C. elegans
†Flies - D. melanogaster
†Fish - D. rerio
†Frogs - X. laevis
†Mice - M. musculus
†Humans - H. sapiens

With the exception of the Zebrafish, the hybrid wheat and the mead-brewing Yeast, all of the organisms were pedigree, wild-type laboratory breeds.  They were either donated or bought and all of them (with the exception of the local hybrid wheat) were shipped UPS to the Art Center from their respective vendors.  The E. Coli, Worms and Flies came from Carolina.com.  The Yeast came from Beerathome.com.  The Plants were donated by Lehle Seeds (Arabidopsis.com) and The Land Institute, which is a local eco-minded wheat lab.  The Fish came from Santa Fe Pets, a local pet store who ordered them from a tropical fish vendor in Florida.  The albino Xenopus Frogs were donated by Enasco.com.  The mice came from Charles River Laboratories, 1-800-LAB-RATS.  One mouse order was shipped as newborn pups / lactating mum combination and the other was a timed pregnant mother expecting on or around the opening.  We, the only voluntary subjects in this installation, were the representatives of human organisms.  We came in from San Francisco, CA on commercial airline flights.

For the first week of the installation, all of the organisms lived together (or were housed) inside of an 8í X 8í cleanroom lent to us by Simplex Isolation Systems.  All of the air in the enclosure was HEPA filtered, insuring that no airborne life larger than 3 microns was able to enter the enclosure.  Of course all the organisms were released inside of this Aseptic Containment Facility, making the point moot. Worms were released into the soil and the water.  Flies were released into the air.  Overlapping microenvironments were sustained according to the needs of the organisms in question.  The Fish and the Frogs had water filters and aeration.  The Mice, Plants and Worms had moist mulchy soil to burrow into.  The humans were given a fridge and a hotplate as well as a porto-potti.  

All of the organisms were allowed to interact with each other.  In fact, multi-species interaction was encouraged.  The Humans were given a cot and changes of costume were provided. The interior architecture reflected our desire to overlap our cultureís generic definitions of kinds of interaction with ëotherí life.  This is why the interior of the cleanroom was designed to emulate the architecture of a kitchen, a water garden, a farm, a laboratory and a natural setting all in one.  An experimental Earth/Air/Water Interface was put in place to help socialize these disparate varieties to each other.  It was a rather successful attempt as the Frogs and the Mice were seen chatting along the perimeters of their respective interfaces.

The actual artists were only physically present during the first week of the installation, Jan 26th - Feb 3rd .  During that time Adam did not leave the enclosure.   Over the period of a week, Adam and Julia took on daily personas to reflect various devolutionary conceptions of what it means to be a part of pop culture in a multi-organismic world.  We were particularly interested in the ways in which cultural conceptualizations of Food, Animal Experimentation, Pets, Wildlife and Entertainment can be blurred, transgressed, confuted and variously de-trenched for re-evaluation in one multifaceted display. We took on different relational personas over this weeklong odyssey and we tried to live through the eyes of these usurped identities as follows:

Day One - Biotech Workers Day
Day Two - Biotech Hobbyists Day (a sort of do it yourself Punk Biotech day)
Day Three - Bioterrorist Day, including references 
to both Al-Queda and Jack in the Box food poisoning
Day Four - Medical Patient/Doctor Day
Day Five - Caveman/Anthropologist Day
Day Six - Wild Animal/Lion Tamer day
Day Seven - Infant/Mother Day

Within the first week of The Workhorse Zoo, the installation had become a part of the Global entertainment network, which meant that the Animals (including the humans) had become another in the long line of Real Television styled, ironic volunteers in the media war against personal privacy.  Like a multispecies Big Brother, The Real World and Survivor, we had voluntarily displayed ourselves spread eagle on a non-stop 24-hour web cam and through personal interaction with the hungry, voyeuristic eyes of Middle America.  We had college level Art, Biology and Psychology classes, high school and elementary classes, church groups, lawyerís luncheons, art appreciation groups, goth-punk contingents and local farmers filtering through on a daily basis. There were also rewarding moments of public purview, mostly when the little children entered the Zoo and held or fed a lab mouse or a lab frog for the first time.  Whether they would become future Biologists, PETA folk or VivoArtists or all three was not up to us.  It was a joy to facilitate the interactions.

We have left out much of our reasoning and commentaries for these acts.  That is so we wonít muddy your initial commentaries/grievances with our dissident philosophies.  We are neither PETA people nor Biotech agents.  We have our own way of seeing and commenting on the State of Naturality/Humanity in which we inhabit.  Please feel free to be lucid, transparent and forthcoming.  Though we may disagree on some of these points, the stimulus of debate should be a service to all sides and we value your opinions.  We think you will notice that many of these issues are not new issues for your organization.  Please, try to cover each of these important points and please try to describe why PETA holds these views:

What is PETAís View on the Origin of these organisms, before domestication and now as mail-order commodities particularly lab breeds.  Where should they be if not where they are?  Why is this PETAís belief?

What is PETAís View on the live Shipping of these organisms, esp. pregnant and neonatal UPS shipments?  Why is this PETAís belief?  

What is PETAís View on the Housing of these organisms, in particular the ethics of multispecies housing?  Should multiple organisms be allowed to live together under the jurisdiction of human compatriots?  Why is this PETAís belief? 

What is PETAís View on the variety of settings collaged upon each other inside this education/entertainment/agitprop environment?  How is this different than a nature-ish setting at a zoo or the minimum requirements for keeping laboratory animals?  Are any of these settings acceptable or is there a way they can become acceptable?  Why is this PETAís belief?

We have been overt in our detailed intro.  We are sincerely interested in the PETA eye view on these issues, in detail.  As you can see, We are curious about both the beliefs of PETA and the philosophies that inform these beliefs. We have three more communiquÈs written.  They will be sent sequentially as follows, 

Intro B) Outro C) Food D) Death.  

All that we ask is for detailed conversation.  Please donít pass judgment without explaining how you arrived at these concepts.  We will in turn be more forthcoming about the conceptual roots of our process in return.  Honest responses would be a much appreciated document for posterity and may be a herald to many others, some of which will inevitably concur, some of which will reject and some of which (the most important group) remain undecided and in need of open discourse.

Adam and Julia

The most difficult panopticonical dealywhak to put up with was the front window of the museum, which had visitors at all hours.  We were central and at street level open for viewing by both foot and auto traffic.  That meant putting up with very human banging on the windows by drunken teens in the middle of the night and whole families unconscientiously knocking and waving way before eight in the morning.  The horn beeping became a cacophony at times.  Feelings of exposure, a kind of indeflectable, pornographic focus were experienced by Adam, Julia and their seemingly less literate friends as well during their term as display animals. Upon leaving the enclosure, Adam and Julia drove down a dirt road appropriately named Hamburger Lane to the nearest Wheatfield/Cow farm and just sniffed the domesticated nature with a hearty inhale.  It was nice to be outside of that cage and just stand under the sun near a little house on the prairie.

The non-human Animals stayed on display in the Cleanroom for another seven weeks, well fed and housed by the Art Center staff.  Although they were plenty fed, the Frogs continued to eat a Fish now and then.  Of the 50-60 mice, (from a start of two Moms and two litters of Pups minus the four-five that were eaten), about ten were given away as pets after a radio advertisement of their availability.  I believe there were a few escapes as well.  The rest were let go under an abandoned bridge in a streambed, which runs through a wheat field down the road from The Land Institute in Salina.  May they enjoy their release.  We are aware that many or all of them may have died and/or been eaten upon release.  We are also of the opinion that the non-native CD-1 Wild-Type Swiss mice whom have not left the lab for hundreds of generations deserved a chance on their own.  

It is our sincere hope that some of them make a niche for themselves in the heartland of the USA.  If any of them make it, they have achieved a rodent version of the American Dream.  Forcibly deported from Switzerland in the 1920ís by the Rockefellers, held as a commodity in Bostonís most biotech intensive rivulet, the Charles River, forced to be art collaborators, they now have a chance at independence in the Creekbeds of the BiblebeltÖ in the GMO wheatfields of Pop AmericanaÖ in the Breadbasket of the West.

Though we may disagree on some of these points, the stimulus of debate should be a service to all sides and we value your opinions.  We think you will notice that many of these issues are not new issues for your organization.  Please, try to cover each of these important points and please try to describe why PETA holds these views:

Question here about NoiseÖ observationÖ gaze, surveillance and study subject.???????

How does PETA respond to the intentional release of laboratory grade wild-type organisms into the mostly agrarian landscape of non-urban Kansas?  What other humane options are there to releasing organisms?  The ten giveaway pets may also be subject to mistreatment.  They may even become food for mouse eating pets like snakes.  The lab would gladly take them back for experimental subjects but that would entail a sort of Double Jeopardy, subjects of art and science in one short life, ugh.  Is there a rehabilitation program for rodents that would have been more appropriate than The Workhorse Zoo at preparing domestic animals for the freedom of the Outside World?  If the mice are able to establish their own colony independent of human command and control, is that a good thing?  Why is this PETAís belief?

How well trained is PETA in judging artistic merit of independent, multispecies performance?  Do you have any experience in art criticism or art history?  Not being a fan of expert knowledge, I ask condroitly, how do you decide what is real art, hollow art, farcical art or credible art and are those judgments mutually exclusive?  Why is this PETAís belief?

Adam and Julia

Food:

There was a focus on food during this first week of the Zoo.  Processed food for animals was given at regular intervals to all the denizens of the Zoo for all the days of the installation except for day five and six.  We had purchased some of the most processed foods on the planet for the feeding of Adam.  He literally lived on sugar cereals, frozen entrees (in particular Hungry Man Dinners) and canned products like Beefaroni.  Sara Lee pound cake and orange soda were a staple of his diet.  He entered the clean room with about three days worth of junk food but he stayed in the box for seven days.  On the fourth day, the townspeople of Salina were asked to feed the Human.  They showed up with more Fast Food and Junk Food, assuming that this was his preference.  Happymeals, Gummy Worms and Animal Crackers were among the signs of ëAnimal Careí among the local populace.  All of the other animals were fed proper rations on day four.  

On the fifth and sixth days, pre-processed food was withheld and a botchy attempt at a bioshere-esque, field-ecology-like ëunsustainable in the long termí food chain was enacted.  The presupposition was that the habitat was a friendly commensurate faux-eden with its necessary compliment of prey/predator relations as well as some natural parasitism possible.  The number of organisms and their reproductive rates were high, and it was not mere strange conjecture to think that no organism would starve, even without food aids from the outside world.  It was also reasoned that if animals did die of some inability to escape domestic security habitsÖ they would be eaten by the other animals and not go to waste.  

Suffice to say, the food was live but not improper, no animals starved in the Workhorse Zoo and these two days were not that different than the days before or after with the exception that no factory was producing the Frog Brittle or the Hungry Man TV Dinners.  They were instead, internally produced by the farm, zoo, kitchen, lab, garden, natural area which was capable of short-term self-preservation as a contained and interactive multi-organismic earth bound space station.  This is not unlike everyday life.

Though we may disagree on some of these points, the stimulus of debate should be a service to all sides and we value your opinions.  We think you will notice that many of these issues are not new issues for your organization.  Please, try to cover each of these important points and please try to describe why PETA holds these views:

What is PETAís view on animal exhibits in general and the essence of pop voyeurism in particular as it pertains to the ethical treatment of animals on display for mass media consumption?  Some criticism has been laid against this exhibition for accentuating the popular aspects of Surveillance Television, euphemistically referred to as Real TV.  Shows like Survivor have emphasized daredevil tactics around ironic-at-best stabs at emulating ëred in tooth and clawí pop-Darwinism.  We are quite obviously referencing these faux re-tribalisms in our installation.  Is it possible that reflections on being a person trying to retain what it means to be human while under the observation of the whole of society has any redeeming social value or is it just a currently accepted form of pornography?  I donít want to put words in your mouth, please comment on this and explain why this is PETAís belief?

What is PETAís view on the eating of fruit flies by tropical fish?  How does the hierarchy of lifeís value happen to coincide with the proximity of that organism to the look or morphological development of Homo sapiens?  If this installation had been a non-vertebrate installation, would any of this be an issue?  Does PETA protect flies or worms from vivisection?  Why or why not? Why is this PETAís belief?

Is vegetarianism automatically more humane than carnivorism?  Plants share sex, birth, death and many of our developmental stages.  Do plants have feelings?  We know they do go into shock when they are cut down.  We also know that they enjoy meat as food.  Many organic farmers feed their plants bone meal, blood meal and fish meal along with varieties of manure from animals of varies diets.  A piece of fruit is, like an egg, food for the unborn kindred of a living organismís fertile seed.  Are plants assumed to be a more cruelty free choice for the moral dietician?  Why is this PETAís belief?

Thank You for sharing,

Adam and Julia

Death:

Another everyday life experience was the death exposed during those two days, death without a repackaged gloss. With issues of food inevitably come issues of death as there is no food that is not derived from the once living. Some animals were killed for consumption.  Their deaths were brought about as quickly as possible.  The four neonatal mice that were eaten were caught and killed by Adamís hands while dressed in a Disney Tigger suit.  Their necks were broken by hand; they were gutted and deep-fried.  They were eaten whole, head and bones Et. Al.  They tasted a lot like bacon.  The Frogs were decapitated and skinned (their skin is poisonous), gutted and fried.  The fish were beheaded.  Plants were sauted.  All this was actuated by Adam dressed as a caveman.  Any leftovers from the gutting and/or after the meals were buried in the soil of the installation.  

Local citizens of Salina joined us for taste tests of fried Frogs, Fish, Plants and Mice with fresh Beer.  Adam ate Fish, Frogs, Mice, Plants and Beer.  Julia also ate Mice and had her fair share of the un-carbonated mead/beer. Jessica, a local teenager, ate frogs with us; she had no beer as she was underage.  PeeWee, a local Blue House Martin bird refuge organizer and road-kill stew aficionado, ate mice and beer with us. Mice ate Plants; in particular they clear-cut all of the fresh wheat that had been transplanted the day before.  Frogs ate Fish.  Fish ate Flies and Worms and their own Eggs.  Worms ate Bacteria and Excrement.  Basically, everyone ate whomever he or she (or in the case of the hermaphroditic worms, heesh) could in a sort of anarchist-commensuralist feast.

We are aware of the varieties of ceremony that American culture practices after the death of a familiar organism. Postmortem humans are relegated by law to be buried in designated spots or cremated (incinerated) and redistributed at the surviving family memberís discretion.  Ceremonial invisibility is practiced by most slaughterhouses and the meat or vegetables are often processed so as to become unrecognizable as the full organisms.  Prayer is often offered before consumption of both raw and cooked lifeforms.  Excess meat from food preparation is usually just put in the garbage for collection and distribution to a local landfill.  A good farmer would compost their excess organic matter or feed it to other livestock or pets. Pets are sort of liminal in their semi-humanness.  This allows them the courtesy of ceremonial burial but often within the ëownerísí yard or nearby local plot without legal jurisdiction being enforced. Because of this freedom, a gravestone or similar memento is often created on the spot. Research methods ask for deep freezing (-80C) followed by incineration of what is presumed to be biohazardous material.  By burying our dead we as culturally immersed VivoArtists were of course referencing these traditions in a very sentimental way.  Even artists are allowed a certain degree of sentimentality, but to no avail. The mice were also seen digging up the leftover Frog bones that had been buried in the soil of the installation and gnawing them clean.

It was also noticed by Pee Wee that while we ate miceÖ the mice were also eating one of their own.  This was not planned or especially celebrated, but it was a fated cue as to our breaking with metaphor.  Here mouse will and co-performance showed that we were engaging the lifeworld as an inseparable part of non-anthropocentric behavior (of which human behavior is a minor subset).  

After ëWild Animal Dayí, regular store bought food was given at standard intervals to the remaining animals for the duration of the exhibition.  On the other hand, they were not prevented from eating each other as a dietary supplement because it was presumed that this was an occasion of inter-species communication.  Was this the inevitable meet/meat-ing of the mortal forces that call us to be finite as entities yet infinite in the organic recycling that is this ecosphere we call Earth?

Though we may disagree on some of these points, the stimulus of debate should be a service to all sides and we value your opinions.  We think you will notice that many of these issues are not new issues for your organization.  Please, try to cover each of these important points and please try to describe why PETA holds these views:

Is the political or aesthetic simulation/actuation of living and sometimes vertebrate food chains inhumane?  Why is letting animals hunt and eat live food (each other) in a display environment inhumane?  For instance, why is it cruel to let fish eating frogs eat live fish instead of processed fish pellets?  Is it less human to kill what you eat?  When and why is this appropriate?

In conjunction, what is PETAís View on the eating of laboratory strains of animals by performance artists?  How is this different from the eating of Beefaroni or Hungry Man TV dinners by performance artists?  I am asking two questions here.  First, why processed meat (and even vegetable matter) would never get a complaint in the first place while DIY (do it your self) food preparation is taboo for public display?  Second, what is the difference between eating lab animals defined as pests outside of the lab (i.e. Mices) lab animals defined as livestock outside of the lab (i.e. Chicks), lab animals defined as pets outside of the lab (i.e. Doggies)?  Is there a difference between laboratory animals used for knowledge acquisition and laboratory animals used for nourishment?  Why is this PETAís belief?

Does PETA have a complaint about the burying of the dead organisms within the installation? Why is this PETAís belief?

What is PETAís best case scenario when it comes to cohabitation of the Earth by both animals and the human animals?  If we were all going to get along, how would the world have to change?

What is PETAís view on the accidental witnessing of mouse cannibalism?  It is not unusual for mice to eat each other but it was not planned for.  In a lab situation it might be left underreported or filed away.  The role of chance in an installation like this is not to be underestimated or under reported.  Do you blame the artists for this act or do you give the mice some agency for their own behaviors?  How do you differentiate between human effect and animal instinct and/or animal consciousness?  Are mice capable of being inhumane or inmousish? Is interspecies guilt a two way street?  Why is this PETAís belief?

We have been overt in our detailed expose.  We realize that this will make some few friends for us in your organizations.  We are sincerely interested in the PETA eye view on these issues, in detail.  As you can see, We are curious about both the beliefs of PETA and the philosophies that inform these beliefs.  Your honest responses would be a much appreciated document for posterity and may be a herald to many others, some of which will inevitably concur, some of which will reject and some of which (the most important group) remain undecided and in need of open discourse.

We hope you will answer these questions even though you may disagree with our motives and/or our actions.  We embody slippery identities but we are willing to represent.  

Adam and Julia

We made a
biosphere that was fake.         It's preposterous.