This article was taken from the January 2012 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.

We're familiar with the concept of life as art. What about living skin and blood cells as art? A wave of collaborations between artists and biologists is using animal and human tissues, bacteria and living organisms as materials for works of bioart.

SymbioticA, a life-sciences lab at the University of Western Australia, has created Semi-Living Worry Dolls: tissue-engineered sculptures inspired by tiny Guatemalan dolls that are given to children to dispel their fears. Textiles have been swapped with pig stem cells seeded on to degradable polymers and placed within a micro-gravity bioreactor. During their exhibition, the dolls' cells grow to create 25-milimetre-high fleshy structures.


Other notable bioart includes Kathy High's Blood Wars, in which two people's white-blood cells are pitted against each other in a petri dish; Andrew Krasnow's work, which he makes with human skin; and Julia Reodica's hymNext Hymen Project, in which the artist grows her vaginal cells into synthesised hymens.

Wellcome Trust arts adviser Jenny Paton says that funding applications for art projects investigating biomedical science have more than doubled since 2006.

She attributes this increase to the rise of interdisciplinary practice at universities and the increasing emphasis on science communications.

And to counter any pesky ethical concerns that some may harbour?


SymbioticA has that covered: it has devised a symbolic device called "the killing ritual" where they invite audiences to expose the tissue to the external environment, contaminating and consigning the art to the incinerator.

Find out more about bioart.

Explore more: Big Ideas For 2012