Description:
As opposed to many websites that merely "advertise" an artist's career, The Embryogenesis of Breath by Jack Butler is in itself an artwork. Following a series of coherently organized yet somewhat subtle steps, the navigator surfs through the site, unraveling the content of the project. The process involved in viewing the site mimics the process-based body of work that Butler is dealing with here. Combining his talents as an interdisciplinary artist and his knowledge of medical science, Butler has made a significant contribution to both fields. The Embryogenesis of Breath is one of the many projects in which the artist expands and develops his work, which is situated between the often harsh atmosphere of science and art.
Biography:
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Butler became a Canadian citizen in 1975. He has exhibited installations, video projections, computer animations, and performance works internationally. His work is in private and public collections, including the National Gallery of Canada. Butler has degrees in visual art and philosophy and 30 years of experience as a medical model- builder and published researcher in human development. He has taught at many institutions, including Carnegie Mellon University and, most recently, the Banff Centre for the Arts and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario.
Quotation:
"How do emotion and desire effect the representation of 'truth' in science and 'truth' in art? How does 'beauty' relate to 'information' in visual models of the growth and shape-changing of the human embryo?"
"The focus of this web site is not the models themselves so much as it is an embodiment of the tension between the visual pleasure and biological content that results from the process of making the models, that tension between the icon and the fetish."
Critical Text:
Although The Embryogenesis of Breath is an artwork in its own right,
it is also only an element within Butler's extensive body of work that deals
with the development of the human embryo. The spectator-participant travels through
a series of images and texts that develop and demonstrate a somewhat condensed, online
version of a much larger project. Rather than describing the site, it is more effective
and less redundant to state that The Embryogenesis of Breath is about the process Butler
has undergone within the often unsafe space between science and art. In this project, Butler
has combined his knowledge within limited space in order to give birth to a significant breakthrough
that is felt within both disciplines. In this work, the fusion between these two worlds is forever present.
It is through this connection that the artist's goals are developed and later achieved.
Perhaps the most effective way to approach this site-and to understand the entire body of work
is to focus on the concept of development. This concept runs through all aspects of the Embryogenesis project,
including the subject matter (development of lungs/breath/life), the artist's process (using art to develop
scientific understanding), and the spectator's travel through the site (the developing understanding of the entire project).
In addition, spectators are invited to participate directly and permanently with the project via the conference page,
an online forum dedicated to the discussion of issues that the project deals with. This element of the site has developed
a life of it's own throughout the past few years, and it continues to grow on a steady basis. Butler is interested
in the relationship people have with his work, and places much emphasis on this aspect of his site.
Given the position of Butler's work-that is it's place between (medical) science and
visual art-his audience may have the misfortune of becoming rather exclusive. At first
spectators may feel intimidated by the scientific slant projected within the site's texts
and may also feel dissuaded from actively participating within the conference page. However,
a close study of the site reveals that it is not at all exclusive-it is in fact rather accessible,
given the nature of the work. Butler has done an excellent job of illustrating a complex
body of work in a coherent fashion. The place where intimidation is most likely to occur
is within the conference page, where the majority of participants are highly educated in
the fields of science, art, or both. Ironically, some of the most interesting and intriguing
contributions come from the brave participants who do not maintain vast amounts of knowledge
within these disciplines. This is Butler's intention behind using this online forum in the
first place-he is well aware that anyone is capable of participating in this project,
and he values the opinions of his participants (as envinced by the fact that he responds to each and every contribution).
Unlike many of the artists included within Digibodies Online, Jack Butler is also one of the
featured artists showing new work in the Digital Bodies-Virtual Spectacle exhibitions.
It will be interesting to see what Butler has created in relation to his project outlined within The
Embryogenesis of Breath ,and how the conference page discourse will morph and develop.
