Patricia Piccinini

I found some work by photographer Patricia Piccinini while scanning articles for my last paper, and thought some would find it of interest. This (above) is the photo I came across, a 1997 photo from Piccinini’s exhibit Protein Lattice. The photos in this exhibit were of naked women holding the controversial Vacanti Mice– lab mice which were programed to grow a cartilage structure resembling a human ear on their back. Piccinini coments on her work: “I have to admit to feeling a certain sympathy for laboratory rats and for models. Both are pieces of meat. They are organic vessels destined to contain the desires of those who utilise them.” Our beloved Donna Harroway says, “When I first saw Patricia Piccinini’s work a few years ago, I recognized a sister in technoculture, a co-worker committed to taking “naturecultures” seriously without the soporific seductions of a return to Eden or the palpitating frisson of a jeremiad warning of the coming technological Apocalypse.”

There are plenty more interesting essays by and about Piccinini at her site.

also related… is this great southpark episode about the Vacanti mice, but the mice aren’t growing ears on their backs… theyre growing penises. So, as you can imagine, the mice get out of the labs and run rampant, and all the women jump on their chairs screaming, “Eek! A mouse Penis!” because well… penises and mice are equally threatening until someone reminds you, “its more afraid of you than you are of it”.