Code to Commodity: Genetics and Art
A new art exhibit at The New York Academy of Sciences explores everything from genetic iconography and gene patents to bioinformation and artificial chromosomes.
Published January 1, 2003
By Dorothy Nelkin and Suzanne Anker
Academy Contributors

In scientific terms, the gene is no more than a biological structure, a DNA segment that, by specifying the composition of a protein, carries information that promotes the formation of living cells and tissues. However, its cultural meaning – reflected in popular culture and visual art – is independent of its biological definition. The signs and symbols of genetics have become icons expressing numerous issues emerging from the genetic revolution.
Since the late 1980s many contemporary artists have incorporated genetic imagery into their work. Images of chromosomes, double helices and autoradiographs increasingly appear in paintings, sculpture, photography and film. Both scientists and artists use visualizations to explore the hidden meanings in the corporeal body, to probe the deeper world underlying surface manifestations and to comprehend the mysteries of life.
While science and art share a cultural context and draw referents from the same milieu, they are distinct ways of knowing the world. Scientific images reflect the fact that science, aspiring to objectivity, is evidence-based. In contrast, artists are absorbed by subjectivity, seeking a truth based on individual and private perceptions.
The images created by artists, however subjective, are important in bridging the connection between the world of scientific discovery and its cultural interpretation in society. These visualizations are a means to shape and analyze how culture assimilates the issues emerging from the burgeoning genetic revolution and a filter engaging our hopes and fears of a bio-engineered future.
Genetic Iconography
From Code to Commodity: Genetics and Visual Art, a show we have curated for The New York Academy of Sciences’ (the Academy’s) Gallery of Art and Science, addresses two themes that have inspired artists to adopt genetic iconography: DNA as a semiotic sign system and a bio-archive for the commercial patenting of gene sequences. Molecular biology has turned the body into a set of notations as scientists seek to understand the workings of the DNA molecule.
Many artists regard these graphic visions as an aspect of modernism’s abstract legacy, a part of the iconography of the 21st century. Attracted by the concept of the body as “code,” they use the symbols of chromosomes and helices to reflect upon the complex structures of life, the inner domain of the person, and the truth underlying appearances.
In Frank Gillette’s The Broken Code (for Luria) (2002), the artist converts a Gregorian chant into a meditation on mitosis. Olivia Parker’s Torso on Blue (1998) directly addresses the body as code through letter forms imposed on a torso. So does Kevin Clarke. His digital color portrait Eight Pages from the Book of Michael Berger, Page 5 (1999) uses the subject’s own nucleotide sequence, garnered through his blood sample.
The artist then overlays this genetic code on top of Mr. Berger’s collection of robots, bringing together two variants of the sitter’s identity. The emerging world of proteomics is another source of iconography, adopted by Steve Miller, Eat Protein (2002).
Bioinformation and Artificial Chromosomes
Michael Rees generates a linguistic sculpture using a sculptural user interface computer program. By typing a particular sentence into his program, he constructs a pictorial equivalent that can be turned into a prototyped sculpture. Marcia Lyons Manipulates her “code” in Munging Body (1999) series to show future ways in which bioinformation may be used to create living specimens in a variety of shapes.
And Suzanne Anker’s Cyber-Chrome Chromosome (1991) addresses the concept of artificial chromosomes, which geneticists are now beginning to create in their labs.
Other artists are starting to explore an increasingly important aspect of contemporary genetics – its role in the world of commerce. Bryan Crockett’s marble and resin sculptures employ the motif of genetically altered mice as instruments in science. In Frank Moore’s Index Study (2001), the commercial icon Mickey Mouse appears on a fingernail emerging from a double helix.
Ellen Levy addresses the issue of patenting life forms as an extension of the routine pattern of commodifying inventions. For the Storey sisters, high fashion meets high technology in a set of dresses conceived from images of fetal development and cellular script. Concerns about the way the body and its genetic materials have been mined and patented, bought and sold, banked and exchanged as commodities are expressed in Larry Miller’s conceptual copyright certificates. And for Natalie Jeremijenko, the cost/benefit analysis of IVF is rhetorically and visually addressed in her media installation.
Public Concern Over Gene Patents
The implications of gene patents – for privacy as well as the protection of patients and human subjects of research and the exchange of information – are emerging as public concerns in the molecular age. This also is reflected in contemporary art.
This Academy exhibition is intended to raise several questions: Is bio-information just another commodity? Should the body become a bio-archive? What are the implications for using the body as a source of coded information for personal privacy, identity and corporeal integrity?
An extended analysis, including numerous illustrations, can be found in our forthcoming book, The Molecular Gaze: Art in the Age of Genetics (New York: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2003).