Newly launched digital art platform Opening Times has commissioned Oliver Sutherland‘s latest exhibition, titled Arabidopsis Thaliana Flammeus and available for viewing here.
Teaming up with a synthetic biologist, Sutherland has altered the genome file of the plant Arabidopsis Thaliana for the exhibition, making the common weed fluorescent under certain light conditions. The accompanying artwork – which exists as an ‘ApE’ file produced by a freeware genetic editor and often used by genetic hackers and biological engineers – contains Sutherland’s altered genome and is available for limited download on the Opening Times’ website (before becoming dependent on peer sharing and seeding via BitTorrent).
An interesting and intentional feature of the exhibition is the absence of consumer tools needed to actualise genetic code into living material, rendering Sutherland’s file obsolete and in waiting for an imagined future state – a play on time not unlike Ruth Proctor‘s Always, another of Opening Times’ recent commissions.
See the Opening Times website for details. **
