Bioart towards a New Concept of Identity

Abstract

The speed made by science and technology in recent times, especially in biotechnology and genomics, has urged a lot of specialists in several areas, including the sectors of culture and science as well as artists, to respond to those changes. Which brought a significant cultural change changed our traditional understanding of civilization and our coping with it under the scientific and cultural amalgamation, in turn, resulted in changing the concept of art and its philosophy and aesthetics. Accordingly, a need for an artistic formulation has become urgent that could express the impact of technology on restoring the formulation of ideas related to human personal identity. Blood type, skin colour and personal features are no longer the symbols of modern identity. The DNA has replaced them in carrying and transferring the personal identity of individuals. A new scientific method has become available to commemorate a person, which contains his physical presence with all his details, genetic history, not just his external image only. This resulted in the introduction of new terminology in Art such as “bio”, “genetic”, and “genetically modified”, and artworks became a laboratory product that converts the articles of life itself into an artistic medium using scientific techniques. This research aims to track the change in the concepts of Identity within the context of Bioart through two main entries: first, biotechnology as a raw material to form a work of art; second, How Bioart introduced a new concept of