Contemplating Our Navel: "Omni Series," Art And Genetics in a Digital Age
By Flash
Navel, after navel, after navel lines the walls of the rooms at Tribes Gallery, some 70 digital images in all. Each navel is distinguished by Photoshop manipulations: the navels have been pixilated, marbleized, dappled, variegated, colorized and/or otherwise altered. Immediately I have two questions: Why navels? What is the intent of these manipulations?
My search for meaning is quickly rewarded by a line of text which winds around the images, turning up or down, right or left, almost always at 90 degree angles. The text is not printed on the gallery walls, as you might expect, rather it is hand drawn on a membrane like scroll which physically winds around the work, much like an umbilical cord, albeit one pinned to the wall. It talks about the importance of stem cell research, and the importance of umbilical cord blood cells to stem cell research.
If you follow this line of words, as it meanders through the three rooms of the gallery (amounting to about a page of text), you learn the difference which the artist perceives between therapeutic cloning and the forms of human cloning which are commonly decried by activists. The artist is particularly concerned that the potential benefits of therapeutic cloning not be lost due to over reaction to any and all uses of cloning. Further, from additional text we learn she promises to donate 10% of the proceeds of the show to support stem cell research.
In this, her cause seems just. Among the voluminous supporting text for this show, you can find a letter from a mother who speaks about the stem cell transplant that saved her child’s life. This mother "loved" the show. She writes, "What very few people understand is that every single pregnant woman has the opportunity to donate her stem cells to the general public so that they may be used in transplants such as (the one which saved her child)."
Commendable, if true. Too many artists fall into the "Frankenstein" mode of artistic production, critical of the dangers of scientific advances, without considering or weighing the countervailing benefits. At a time when extreme political forces have ended government funding for stem cell research, this work takes on political, as well as social, medical, scientific and aesthetic dimensions. Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and cancer are some of the diseases which might be cured using stem cells. Twomey can be admired for her courage in deciding to champion therapeutic stem cell research.
From the accompanying text we learn the show’s title, "Omni Series," was inspired by the Greek word Omphalos. The word meant navel, and according to the artist also referred to a huge stone the Greeks thought was the center of the earth. The artist explains that to her, "Omni" also refers to the omnipotent power of stem cells. I am reminded that in ancient Greek one word, "techne" referred to both art and science. These disciplines, which have seemed so disparate in the centuries since, seem to again merge in the work of digital artists today.
But what about all those photo manipulations? What of their aesthetics and meaning? There is again no lack of explanatory text: we are informed the images were photographed at a HOWL festival in the East Village. The manipulations are intended to show what it might feel like to be cloned. I’m trying to make that connection when I see an image on a video monitor which makes the connection for me. A photograph of a navel appears, and then as filters are tweaked, it morphs into one of the images we see before us in the gallery. In this manner we see navel after navel transformed as we watch the DVD. I learn the artist used Image Ready to create the animations from Photoshop files.
The video seems to provide some sense of explanation, hence meaning for the images. We may not understand why the navels look the way they do, but at least we’ve now seen how they got to look that way, which provides some sort of satisfaction to our curiosity, and at least a sense of having seen the causation, if not of understanding said causation. We seem to be able to connect to the feelings the artist had in the act of creation. The ability to thus expressively use the dimension of time inherent in digital media helps to define contemporary digital artists.
