News By Graham Templeton Jun. 4, 2014 2:58 pm
Though little is known for sure about the famous self-mutilation of Vincent Van Gogh, we do know that when he severed his ear he handed it to an understandably surprised young lady with the following words: “Keep this object like a treasure.” Well, though she likely threw the thing to the ground then and there, Van Gogh’s apparent concern for the longevity of his ear could still be satisfied.
More than 125 years after he first cut it off, Van Gogh’s ear is being reproduced with 3D bioprinting technology, and some genetic material from the painter’s closest living relative.
Lieuwe van Gogh is the legendary painter’s great, great grandson, and shares roughly 1/16th of the great man’s genes. As a result, his cells were used as the substrate*for a precisely bioprinted replica of Van Gogh’s own ear, based off of many paintings and drawings. The original plan was to use Vincent’s own DNA, supposedly preserved on a licked envelope, but the genetic material turned out not to be genuine. Given a Vincent-shaped start, though, the related cells should be enough to produce a fairly accurate looking organ. The printed cells were grown into a real, living ear at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
A young Vincent Van Gogh.
The art exhibit, called Sugababe,*will let visitors actually speak to the ear via microphone, which is processed and transmitted to the ear via stimulated nerve pulses. Of course, a brainless ear cannot understand your words, and to drive home this “absence instead of presence” the artists let these nerve impulses give rise to a crackling static sound.
This is a genuinely living ear, in the technical sense, and could be kept “alive” for years thanks to a nutrient solution that provides everything the cells need to survive. This is definitely among the world’s first pieces of truly living art, created wholesale from nothing. The exhibit has been mildly controversial, but if it comes to greater prominence will probably provoke even greater backlash from those wary of such playing with life. Bioprinting is being used to (try to) create everything from bladders to livers to hearts, but those are only for medical applications.
In a way, these artists were lucky that Van Gogh did not cut off something more complex than an ear which, if we exclude the interior, functional parts, is really just a folded up disk of flesh. We’ve been growing ears for transplant for some time now, but the technology is finally becoming simple, cheap, and available enough to open up to new and potentially troubling industries.
Art could find some truly novel uses for creating living pieces of art — the question is whether or not we want them to.
More...
More than 125 years after he first cut it off, Van Gogh’s ear is being reproduced with 3D bioprinting technology, and some genetic material from the painter’s closest living relative.
Lieuwe van Gogh is the legendary painter’s great, great grandson, and shares roughly 1/16th of the great man’s genes. As a result, his cells were used as the substrate*for a precisely bioprinted replica of Van Gogh’s own ear, based off of many paintings and drawings. The original plan was to use Vincent’s own DNA, supposedly preserved on a licked envelope, but the genetic material turned out not to be genuine. Given a Vincent-shaped start, though, the related cells should be enough to produce a fairly accurate looking organ. The printed cells were grown into a real, living ear at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
A young Vincent Van Gogh.The art exhibit, called Sugababe,*will let visitors actually speak to the ear via microphone, which is processed and transmitted to the ear via stimulated nerve pulses. Of course, a brainless ear cannot understand your words, and to drive home this “absence instead of presence” the artists let these nerve impulses give rise to a crackling static sound.
This is a genuinely living ear, in the technical sense, and could be kept “alive” for years thanks to a nutrient solution that provides everything the cells need to survive. This is definitely among the world’s first pieces of truly living art, created wholesale from nothing. The exhibit has been mildly controversial, but if it comes to greater prominence will probably provoke even greater backlash from those wary of such playing with life. Bioprinting is being used to (try to) create everything from bladders to livers to hearts, but those are only for medical applications.
In a way, these artists were lucky that Van Gogh did not cut off something more complex than an ear which, if we exclude the interior, functional parts, is really just a folded up disk of flesh. We’ve been growing ears for transplant for some time now, but the technology is finally becoming simple, cheap, and available enough to open up to new and potentially troubling industries.
Art could find some truly novel uses for creating living pieces of art — the question is whether or not we want them to.
More...
