BioArt + Assistive Device Art: Transformation of Ability and Perception, the Plasticity of the Mind, and Human Expansion

Glowing rabbits, ears on arms, music embedded in DNA, female human sperm are artworks that apply scientific methods and technology to explore and sculpt living-systems. BioArt and Assistive Device Art are contemporary art practices that incorporate biological sciences and assistive technology as a form of artistic inquiry into bio-systems and the human condition. Seeing through your tongue, listening to music through your teeth, navigating space through sonic vision, are examples of interfaces that are functional and assistive, yet can serve as interactive portals to gain new cross-modal perceptual abilities. Bio-artworks aesthetically and conceptually apply materials and methods from bioengineering, health sciences, synthetic biology, and medicine, generating work that deals directly with these bio-fields' socio-cultural implications.  The convergence of expertise necessary to create these artworks is a platform to generate discussions and new directions for research between health practitioners, bioethicists, and artists to envision alternative biofutures that are humanistically, socially, and aesthetically conscious and concerned.