ThGAP BAbyss
<-- This is part of dusjagr's LatamTrip24
Contents
- 1 Description
- 2 Collaborators
- 3 Remote inputs
- 4 Further Readings and Links
- 4.1 thGAP - Transgenic Human Germline Alternatives Project
- 4.2 Human germline gene editing is bioart: an open letter to Lulu and Nana
- 4.3 The Los Angeles Project
- 4.4 The Camille Stories - Children of Compost
- 4.5 Random Notes on the Human Genome Editing summit 2018
- 4.6 The Mutant Project: Inside the Global Race to Genetically Modify Humans
- 5 Global Summit Genome Editing Harvard WCONTRA.11 thGAP
- 6 Support and Partners
Description
Title: thGAP BAbyss
thGAP - Transgenic Human Germline Alternatives Project, presents an evening of input lectures, discussions and a performative workshop on artistic interventions for future scenarios of human genetic and inheritable modifications.
To begin our lecturers, Marc Dusseiller aka "dusjagr" and Rodrigo Martin Iglesias, will give an overview of their transdisciplinary practices, including the history of hackteria, a global network for sharing knowledge to involve artists in hands-on and Do-It-With-Others (DIWO) working with the lifesciences, and reflections on future scenarios from the 8-bit computer games of the 80ies to current real-world endeavous of genetically modifiying the human species.
We will then follow up with discussions and hands-on experiments on working with embryos, ovums, gametes, genetic materials from code to slime, in a creative and playful workshop setup, where all paticipant can collaborate on artistic interventions into the germline of a post-human future.
Anonymous quote: "Genetically modifying the human germline with novel and creative genomic alterations is more aesthetically nuanced in an orthogonal to the contemporary sense than your average clinical CRISPR baby or normative design applique."
Venue
Museo Moderno
Av. San Juan 350
Lunes 27 de mayo: Schedule
17 - 19h
- Welcome
- Introductions of Rodrigo and Marc
- Q&A
- Remote input from Adam Zaretsky (recorded video)
- Let's craft some CRISPR Babies!
- RoundLab discussion
Collaborators
Rodrigo Martin Iglesias (AR)
Rodrigo Martin Iglesias from Futuros FADU and OpenDesign Master
Marc Dusseiller (CH)
Marc Dusseiller aka dusjagr is a nomadic researcher and workshopologist. He is part of the Center for Alternative Coconut Research, co-founder of SGMK, Bitwäscherei Hackerspace Collective and the Hackteria network. Before travelling the world for making DIY / DIWO laboratories for creative biological experimentation with living media, Marc entered the world of DIY electronics, designing printed circuit boards for synthesizers and organizing workshops and festivals mostly in Zürich, Taipei and Yogyakarta. He also loves coconuts.
- http://hackteria.org/wiki/dusjagr
- https://mechatronicart.ch/
- https://bitwaescherei.ch/
- https://wiki.8bitmixtape.cc/
Marc Dusseiller alias dusjagr es un investigador y tallerista nómada. Es parte del Center for Alternative Coconut Research, co-fundador de SGMK, Bitwäscherei Hackerspace Collective y la red Hackteria. Antes de viajar por el mundo para crear laboratorios DIY/DIWO para la experimentación biológica creativa con medios vivos, Marc entró en el mundo de la electrónica DIY, diseñando placas de circuito impreso para sintetizadores y organizando talleres y festivales principalmente en Zürich, Taipei y Yogyakarta. Fue coorganizador de las diferentes ediciones de HackteriaLab 2010 - 2020 Zürich, Romainmotier, Bangalore, Yogyakarta y Klöntal, Okinawa y colaboró en la organización de BioFabbing Convergence, 2017, en Ginebra y el Gathering for Open Science Hardware, GOSH! 2016, Geneva & 2018, in Shenzhen. También le encantan los cocos.
Heidi Jalkh (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Remote inputs
Adam Zaretsky (US/PT)
Zaretsky is a Wet-Lab Art Practitioner mixing Ecology, Biotechnology, Non-human Relations, Body Performance and Gastronomy. Zaretsky stages lively, hands-on bioart production labs based on topics such as: foreign species invasion (pure/impure), radical food science (edible/inedible), jazz bioinformatics (code/flesh), tissue culture (undead/semi-alive), transgenic design issues (traits/desires), interactive ethology (person/machine/non-human) and physiology (performance/stress). A former researcher at the MIT department of biology, for the past decade Zaretsky has been teaching an experimental bioart class called VivoArts at: San Francisco State University (SFSU), SymbioticA (UWA), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), University of Leiden’s The Arts and Genomic Centre (TAGC) and with the Waag Society. He has also taught DIY-IGM (Do-It-Yourself Inherited Genetic Modification of the Human Genome) at New York University (NYU) and Carnegie Melon University (CMU). He also runs a public life arts school: VASTAL (The Vivoarts School for Transgenic Aesthetics Ltd.) His art practice focuses on an array of legal, ethical, social and libidinal implications of biotechnological materials and methods with a focus on transgenic humans.
Further Readings and Links
thGAP - Transgenic Human Germline Alternatives Project
Link to docu: https://thgap.hackteria.org/
A reflection on the workshops series Mind thGAP - Transgenic Human Genome Alternatives Project, and an invitation to collaborate on the CGCB - Creative Germline Construct Bank, an online open source bioinformatics database of diverse genetic constructs for germline entry using the GOSHPA - General Open Source Plasmid for Human Arts, as a chassis for transgene infection into a newly fertilized ovum.
Adam Zaretsky, Marc Dusseiller, Cristian Delgado, Paula Pin, Mary Maggic and many collaborators worldwide. The events were held in early summer 2021 at the Hackteria ZET - Open Science Lab in Zürich, Switzerland, and online.
"Genetically modifying the human germline with novel and creative genomic alterations is more aesthetically nuanced in an orthogonal to the contemporary sense than your average clinical CRISPR baby applique."
Its a zine, and QR code invite to collab and be a part of the only online open source bioinformatics database of diverse genetic constructs for human germline entry. All the CGCB genes were chosen publicly by amateur bioartists, citizen scientists and DIY-BIO hobbyists. used for for transgene infection into a newly fertilized ovum during home IVF, garage human embryo design and transgenic human alternative brood breeding without copyright or proprietary nuisance.
Human germline gene editing is bioart: an open letter to Lulu and Nana
"Adam Zaretsky is an American Wet-Lab Art Practitioner mixing Ecology, Biotechnology, Non-human Relations, Body Performance and Gastronomy. In his last contribution of his summer series of speculative texts, he proposes a letter to Lulu and Nana, the controversial “CRISPR babies” born in November 2018. The fœtuses genomes were edited to prevent HIV by Chinese scientist He Jiankui, an act for which he was found guilty of forging documents and unethical conduct in 2019 and sentenced to three years in prison with a three-million-yuan fine (400,000€)."
The Los Angeles Project
The time to decide how we use this technology is now.
The Camille Stories - Children of Compost
"And then Camille came into our lives, rendering present the crossstitched generations of the not-yet-born and not-yet-hatched of vulnerable, coevolving species. Proposing a relay into uncertain futures, I end Staying with the Trouble with a story, a speculative fabulation, which starts from a writing workshop at Cerisy in summer 2013, part of Isabelle Stengers’s colloquium on gestes spéculatifs. Gestated in sf writing practices, Camille is a keeper of memories in the flesh of worlds that may become habitable again. Camille is one of the children of compost who ripen in the earth to say no to the posthuman of every time"
- Donna Haraway "Camille Stories": File:haraway_camillestories.pdf
From Staying with the Trouble by Haraway, Donna J.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822373780
Random Notes on the Human Genome Editing summit 2018
Some videos and texts from the HK Human Genome Editing Summit
what happened between 2015 and 2019?
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/535661/engineering-the-perfect-baby/
The Mutant Project: Inside the Global Race to Genetically Modify Humans
An anthropologist visits the frontiers of genetics, medicine, and technology to ask: Whose values are guiding gene editing experiments? And what does this new era of scientific inquiry mean for the future of the human species?
"That rare kind of scholarship that is also a page-turner." ―Britt Wray, author of Rise of the Necrofauna
At a conference in Hong Kong in November 2018, Dr. He Jiankui announced that he had created the first genetically modified babies―twin girls named Lulu and Nana―sending shockwaves around the world. A year later, a Chinese court sentenced Dr. He to three years in prison for "illegal medical practice."
As scientists elsewhere start to catch up with China’s vast genetic research program, gene editing is fueling an innovation economy that threatens to widen racial and economic inequality. Fundamental questions about science, health, and social justice are at stake: Who gets access to gene editing technologies? As countries loosen regulations around the globe, from the U.S. to Indonesia, can we shape research agendas to promote an ethical and fair society?
Eben Kirksey takes us on a groundbreaking journey to meet the key scientists, lobbyists, and entrepreneurs who are bringing cutting-edge genetic engineering tools like CRISPR―created by Nobel Prize-winning biochemists Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier―to your local clinic. He also ventures beyond the scientific echo chamber, talking to disabled scholars, doctors, hackers, chronically-ill patients, and activists who have alternative visions of a genetically modified future for humanity.
The Mutant Project empowers us to ask the right questions, uncover the truth, and navigate this brave new world.
Global Summit Genome Editing Harvard WCONTRA.11 thGAP
thGAP - WCONTRA.11 is Gonzo Reporting from: The Global Observatory for Genome Editing International Summit, May 21-23 2025 Cambridge MA USA Site:
A little bit about the Summit compared to the past three: The First Three Summits - The Human Genome Editing Initiative were led by the USA National Academies with Meetings in the USA, China and the UK. They were run by scientists, for the scientific value of limitless deregulation of science by anyone else but the scientists, speed as progress in general and never to utter the word 'moratorium'. In a sort of fait accompli or planned controversy (many were in the know) during the second meeting, held in Hong Kong, China, rogue or patsy or ethics dump, He Jiankui announced that Lulu and Nana, the first official GMO Human Babies or Designer Babies were born full term in his experimental care. The The Human Genome Editing Initiative then became The Summit on Human Genome Editing (as Initiative seemed to Just Do It in retrospect) and concluded its mission in London with lip service and humdrumming / pussyfooting about for the most part. Perhaps a tinge of trying to bury the glee of forced advancement: the first officially intentionally mutated living human children walk the earth as a part of our warning summit/initiative. Thanks PR team human genome scramble scramblerz.
Sheila Jasanoff is the Director of The Global Observatory on Genome Editing, which was first established in September of 2020 by the Harvard Kennedy School, Program on Science, Technology & Society. Jasanoff has roots in Cornell University, where she helped establish a major in Biology and Society. In the 1960s, Cornell was also hosting a Conference on Biology and Society which could be seen as a predecessor of the Global Observatory on Genome Editing. Later Jasanoff founded the STS Program at Harvard.
STS Science Technology Studies is a branch of sociology/anthropology and they waltzed into the scene picking up where the Human Gene Editing Summit debate left off. You know, with the tech-stork daddy He Jiankui (Dr. He of JK {Just Kidding?} of the twin Germline Genetic baby experiments getting a three year jail sentence. All the Royal Society was able to muster was that, "This is not how we scientists are meant to regulate ourselves." ANd seek closure of their Wagnerian cycle.
But there are signs that the Chinese the US and the UK had full knowledge and aided in the achievement of going public with their Therapy Enhancement by not talking about the full term experimental GMslop Genomic Splay kids coming down the pike. Teaching and supporting Dr. He was a slew of US, UK and Chinese funding and colluding people and bodies. Where the Hell is Michal Deem? Jane Qiu was in Cambridge at the Global Gene Edited humans Summit to talk about this, see:
The video record of the Global Observatory for Genome Editing International Summit is here:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNNHwLviWI4&t=3264s
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgTCw2uRqNs&t=7496s
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyE9hhS3cBM&t=5434s
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1GEOxaTyn4
the transgenic human Genome Alternatives Project, thGAP is a GLOBAL AESTHETIC RESPONSE TO HUMANS AS TRANSGENIC BIOART
Bioarts Ethical Advisory Komission (BEAK) was established to provide artistic oversight and ethical assessment for bioart applications. is exploring the role of aesthetic breadth through Bioart, bioart history, and science technology wet life science creative cultural criticism. Covering biosafety, recombinant safety, animal and other non-human or semi-human care and use as well as housing and enrichment for bioart projects.
Adam Zaretsky and Y Paradis of thGAP/BEAK attended
The Global Observatory for Genome Editing International Summit
and held the 11th World Congress on New Reproductive Technology Arts
WCONTRA.11 on site
WCONTRA.11 had a visitor from a friend and PhD Candidate from MIT Media Lab who is an alumni of TTTlabs BioFeral.BeachCamp (BFBC): New Repro-Zombie Studies (NR-ZS) - Undead Bioart / Bodyart on the Beach, understanding Fertilization through topics in: Artificial Insemination, In Vitro Fertilization, Germline Gene Editing and Zombie Studies. Link to their work is here:
TTTlabs
Watch the TTTlabs video here:
The International Summit was largely comprised of keynote speakers and panels of 4 or 5 speakers, that were each followed by a very brief question and comment period. Day 1 also involved two arts performances. The subjects of the events were as follows:
Day 1 -Introduction by Sheila Jasanoff, Benjamin Hurlbut, Krishanu Saha, and funder: John Mcquiilan -“The Choreography of CRISPR”, a dance commentary on gene editing performed by Pigeon Wing Dance Company, NYC, choreographed by Gabrielle Lamb https://vimeo.com/770539300 -“Twists and Turns in Decoding Life”, questions of the genetic sciences, present day issues -Screening of a theater piece, “Unspeakable Conversations”, co-written by Christian O’Reilly, Liz Carr, Mat Fraser and Olwen Fouéré. The play was a theoretical recreation of a conversation between philosopher Peter Singer and Harriet McBryde Johnson, attorney and disability rights activist. (Shout out to Christian O’Reilly, brother of Kira O’Reilly and also an agitator of the complacent mind.. and a calming force for those who love difference. Super family as Kira O’Reilly is both Body in Performance Artist and Bioartist extraodinaire.
Day 2 -“Health in the CRISPR Era” -“Limits of Engineering” -Keynote Address by Marcia McNutt who;s message was a bit like covering a turd with confectioners sugar -“Biocapital and the Conditions of Innovation” -“Cosmopolitan Bioethics” -“Public Imaginations of Public Goods”
Day 3 -“Sources of Moral Authority: Science, Religion, Law, Medicine” -“Modalities of Governance” -“Center for Genetics and Society Special Session: Bringing Excluded Voices to the Table” -“Globalization and Its Frictions” -“Alternative Futures: Reorientation and Renewal”
Review is as follow: We should not have taken the 2C7B with the Synth Rhizome tea. Best of commentary on speakers here
Video thGAP Question One:
https://mega.hackteria.org/index.php/s/Mf9DrL8fXRMcZdi
Video thGAP Question Three:
https://mega.hackteria.org/index.php/s/46WkgckXMtRXi8Y
Statement Global Observatory for Genome Editing Summit Statement: Call for a Charter on Emerging Technologies and Human Dignity May 23, 2025
The 2025 Summit endorsed four principles that should guide the development of such a Charter:
Principle 1: Begin with questions of human dignity and the common good. Questions affecting the future of humanity require inclusive deliberation about visions of the common good that are served by science and technology. An overly narrow focus on the risks of innovation sidelines fundamental questions of human dignity, purpose and progress. Questions affecting our common future should not be defined solely in response to innovations in science and technology but should attend to more democratic definitions of society’s needs and wants.
Principle 2: Reconsider current innovation systems and the consequences for the distribution of benefits and risks. There are multiple reward structures currently supporting biotech innovation. The distribution of ownership and control are not inevitable features of invention, but are themselves reflections of specific priorities and commitments. Therefore, these arrangements and their distributive consequences are a necessary and appropriate subject of public scrutiny and ethical deliberation.
Principle 3: Expand the range of questions for deliberation. Ethical questions surrounding emerging biotechnologies are fundamentally questions about the value of life, the range of human experience, and a future that will foster flourishing across the diversity of humanity. For example, the acceptability of heritable genome editing is not primarily a technical question of the precision of molecular techniques or effects (e.g., off-target events), but first and foremost a question about human relations and mutual obligations—parent to child, medicine to patients, society to its members, states to their citizens, and the global community to the common heritage of humankind.
Principle 4: Reimagine the limits of research. Limits on research need to be developed in new and responsible ways, paying attention to long-term consequences and future generations. Responsible limits will further creative and curiosity-driven science and innovation, yielding significant benefits. Inclusive deliberation aimed at reaching a consensus on what questions must be asked would provide a more democratic framework for determining what research is needed to answer society’s questions.
Of course thGAP has an Arts based Bioethics that follows the following oversite mechanisms:
10 Bioart Ethics Tenets for Transgenic Breeding as bioart
° trials using heritable germline editing should be permitted only after Aesthetic review in an Artistic Regulatory framework that includes the following criteria, restrictions and structures:
° restriction against the knocking-in of gene edits that have been convincingly demonstrated to cause or to strongly predispose kindred to the disease of cultural banality, the condition of esoteric-lessness showing evidence of adverse normalizing;
° comprehensive plans for long-term, multigenerational Follow-up, mating schemas, entertainment contracting and pornographic options, all the while still respecting personal autonomy;
° restrictions in place preventing naive enhancement optimism aesthetics in the human genome as pragmatic and utilitarian arguments are not enough to insure contemporary artistic standards (unless level of Hyperrealism meets peer practitioner standards); encourage: maximum arty opacity while still being consistent with the legal invasion of patient privacy;
° emotional alternatives informing editing structures and goals have been formed in the aesthetic absence of reason;
° restrictions to allowing a serious kitsch disease or poor aesthetic conditioning respected (unless level of irony meets Contemporary standards);
° ongoing, rigorous oversight during clinical trials of the aesthetics of the procedure and the exhibition and documentation of the research participants;
° continued reassessment of je ne sais quoi in terms of both artistic and aesthetic benefits and risks, with broad ongoing participation and input by the artists, art historians and art critics on gene constructs of mutagenic choice;
° reliable subaltern insight oversight mechanisms to prevent extension of technology to uses other than creating serious art or novel and iconoclastic conditions; and
° availability of incredible or even unbelievable pre-clinical and/or clinical data on risks and potential contemporary time-based, new media bioart benefits due to successful indoctrination, infiltration and transgene infection of multigenerational procedures.
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