Vanitas in a Petri dish

Vanitas in a Petri Dish
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Vanitas in a Petri Dish
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Vanitas in a Petri Dish
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Vanitas in a Petri Dish. Installation view.
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Vanitas ( in a Petri dish), a series of digital photographs bringing the concept of vanitas into the 21st century. In prior centuries, vanitas paintings warned against the excesses of material culture. Expressing the futility of life and its no-escape signatory presence of death, these representations exalt the fleetingness of personal existence. The viewer is presented with dead
Insects, fruit stuffs which will decay, bones, minerals, alloys and such. Taking a cue from synthetic biology, scientific research is opening the pathways under which organisms and plants can be fabricated to create a palette of living entities not present in the natural world.