States Storing And Selling Your DNA At Birth Without Explicit Notice Consent (TBA: Hospitals Doctors Testlabs Too)

dan at geer.org dan at geer.org
Sat Nov 14 07:20:04 PST 2015


 > Besides blood, can (parts of) DNA be recovered from other stuff
 > say hair, urine?


http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-ear-made-with-van-gogh-dna-1=
80957230/?no-ist

Vincent van Gogh's ear is nearly as famous as his jaw-dropping
Starry Night. Though its final resting place may never be found --
as the legend goes, he severed off part of his ear and then gave
it to a prostitute, museumgoers in New York can get a look at the
next best thing. ArtNet's Sarah Cascone reports that a living replica
of van Gogh's ear, created using the artist's DNA, is now on display
at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts in New York City.

The ear is the gruesome brainchild of Diemut Strebe, a conceptual
artist who partnered with scientists from MIT and other universities
to create a copy of van Gogh's ear. Using DNA extracted from a stamp
licked by the artist, as well as cell samples collected from van
Gogh's great-great-grandnephew, Strebe and team created "Sugababe,"
an artificially grown ear suspended in a clear gel.

Visitors don't have to merely look at the ear'they can talk into
it, too. On her website, Strebe writes that "the input sound is
connected to a computer processor, using a software program to
generate simulated nerve impulses from the sound signal in real
time. They mimic sounds recorded from an electrode inserted into
the auditory nerve, when firing." Noam Chomsky was the first person
to speak into the ear after it debuted in Germany last year.

In a 2014 story about the bizarre art project, Cascone writes that
the ear is "just one of a limited edition." Neither van Gogh's
relatives nor the Dutch museum that bears his name want copies of
their own.

If "Sugababe" is a slightly macabre commentary on fame and art,
it's also a tribute to a world-famous artistic body part. It's not
certain what actually happened to van Gogh's ear: though he supposedly
gave it to a prostitute during a mental breakdown, recent scholarship
suggests that it was actually cut off by Paul Gauguin during an
argument between the two artists.

Perhaps van Gogh could have benefitted from 21st-century ear
replication technology. Still, there's no telling what the painter'who
once proclaimed that the idea of exhibiting his work left him
"absolutely cold" would make of artwork inspired by one of his
darkest moments.




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