The Tissue Culture & Art Project /TC&A
Oron Catts (b.1967, Helsinki, Finland)
Ionat Zurr (b.1970, London, UK)
Artists, researchers, curators. Catts is Co-founder and Director of SymbioticA, the Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts at the School of Anatomy and Human Biology, at the University of Western Australia (Perth, Australia). In 1996, Catts and Zurr established the Tissue Culture & Art Project – a complex contemporary art research project of tissue technologies. The project was demonstrated at media art festivals around the world, including Ars Electronica (Linz, 2000, 2001, 2007), Deluxe Media Art (Sydney, 2000), Adelaide Biennale of Australian Arts (Adelaide, 2002), European Media Art Festival (Osnabruck, 2003), ArtBot (New York, 2003), Boston CyberArts Festival (Boston, 2003), Adelaide International Arts Festival (Adelaide, 2004), Biennale of Electronic Arts (Perth, 2004), ISEA06 (San Jose, 2006), Sk-interface (Liverpool, 2008). They are the authors of numerous articles on wet technologies in scientific and artistic publications such as: Tissue Engineering (2000), Take Over Ars Electronica (2001), Thresholds Magazine (2002), Art Link Australia (2002), Leonardo (2002), Experimenta (2003) and BioMediale (2004). Catts and Zurr participated in many international contemporary art conferences and have lectured in various institutions, among them: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Boston), the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago), Oxford University (Oxford), the Exploratorium (San Francisco) and Tate Modern (London). In 2000-2001, they were Research Fellows at the Tissue Engineering and Organ Fabrication Laboratory of Harvard Medical School (Massachusetts). Catts is the organizer and curator of bio art exhibitions and scientific conferences such as BioFeel (Perth, 2002) and BioDifference (Perth, 2004) held as part of the Biennale of Electronic Arts (Perth, Australia). Catts and Zurr have been awarded prizes, including the Golden Nica for Hybrid Arts in the Prix Ars Electronica (2007).