Artists to be taught about controversial gene-editing technology at California university

'The artist has a way of speaking through the subconscious, speaking through the gut'

(Getty/iStockphoto)

The promising gene-editing technology CRISPR is a divisive topic, and a new residency at a California University may help extend that discussion into the art world.

Stochastic Labs and the Innovative Genomics Institute at UC Berkeley are offering a spring residency for 2019 to artists or “creative practitioners” who want to involve CRISPR in their work. The organisation invites “visual artists, animators, bio designers, sci-fi writers, sound and installation artists, architects, poets, game designers, and other creative practitioners (with or without a background in science)” to apply.

The programme is designed to help artists create work featuring gene-editing while being both accurate and nuanced. “Our goal is that the work that comes out of this two month period deepens and widens the conversation about this very provocative technology,” said founder and director of Stochastic Labs Vero Bollow.

CRISPR-Cas9, often just called CRISPR, was first used to edit genes in 2013, and since then, the technology has become a lightning rod for controversy. While scientists have debated the ethics and potential of genetic engineering for decades, CRISPR offered them a way to edit genes so quickly, easily, and cheaply, that ethical guidelines and regulations have not been able to adapt as quickly.

As a result, some applications of this promising technique have raised eyebrows across the scientific world.

For example, in November, a Chinese scientist announced that several human babies had been born after he edited their DNA using CRISPR. Rather than being met with celebration, the international scientific community accused him of acting unethically and using a risky process.

It is such controversy that the residency is hoping to tap into and perhaps explain beyond just news headlines, according to the organisers. “The artist has a way of speaking through the subconscious, speaking through the gut, and speaking in a way that is a little bit deeper than the pro-or-con rhetoric that’s in the day-to-day news cycle,” Ms Bollow says.

Participants in the residency will become intimately familiar with CRISPR-Cas9 during the residency, spending two months in a private apartment in the Stochastic Labs mansion with a $1,000 a month stipend. They will work alongside real CRISPR scientists and attend seminars and events, with a full-time scientist hired to help them along. The application is due on Friday.

Cloning and genetic engineering have been hot topics in science fiction for decades, with films like Jurassic Park, GATTACA and Splice highlighting some of the potentially disastrous effects of using biotech. Supporters of art residencies in labs say they can help creative practitioners to bring science into the public sphere in a compelling, but nuanced, way.