Biokitsch in Art: And the Survival of the Prettiest

Abstract

In the field of the visual arts and humanities, artists working with biological and biotech arts are at the forefront of understanding with a wide perspective the potentialities and the societal implications of science and technology developments. Artistic projects emerging from biological and biotech arts are often presented with aesthetics adopted from laboratories and scientific experiments; they incorporate petri dishes, glassware, hardware components, and clinical machine parts. Among the numerous artworks with these kinds of typical laboratory aesthetics are also examples that stand out with their different aesthetics, which, when looked at from a traditional high-art perspective, could be seen in the light of the definition of kitsch. Kitsch is commonly claimed to attest to “poor taste,” excessive cuteness, or sentimentality. However, when these artworks are investigated through a wider societal perspective, the works seem to have additional layers which affect, challenge, and play with kitsch aspects.