How humans' aesthetic perceptions have shaped other life forms, from racehorses to ornamental plants.
Humans have bred plants and animals with an eye to aesthetics for centuries: flowers are selected for colorful blossoms or luxuriant foliage; racehorses are prized for the elegance of their frames. Hybridized plants were first exhibited as fine art in 1936, when the Museum of Modern Art in New York showed Edward Steichen's hybrid delphiniums. Since then, bio art has become a genre; artists work with a variety of living things, including plants, animals, bacteria, slime molds, and fungi. Many commentators have addressed the social and political concerns raised by making art out of living material. In Green Light , however, George Gessert examines the role that aesthetic perception has played in bio art and other interventions in evolution.
Gessert looks at a variety of life forms that humans have helped shape, focusing on plants—the most widely domesticated form of life and the one that has been crucial to his own work as an artist. We learn about pleasure gardens of the Aztecs, cultivated for intoxicating fragrance; the aesthetic standards promoted by national plant societies; a daffodil that looks like a rose; and praise for weeds and wildflowers.
**
Review
[A] more than fascinating collection of notes about genetics and evolution in the context of art, and vice versa, and the aesthetic interventions of Homo sapiens.
― Leonardo Reviews
[A] more than fascinating collection of notes about genetics and evolution in the context of art, and vice versa, and the aesthetic interventions of Homo sapiens.
― Leonardo Reviews ( Reviews )
Review
Manipulating the sexual organs of plants is where we've intervened in evolution, where we see the most durable marks of our cultures. Gessert's stunningly clear and delicately poetic series of notes presents the durable preoccupations that have informed the manipulation of life, including a comprehensive survey of contemporary biotech art and the patient multigenerational folk art of plant and animal breeders. Green Light illuminates that we can continue to re-imagine our relationship with other living things and, through bio art, 'imagine ourselves into the future
― Natalie Jeremijenko , xClinic, New York University ( Endorsement )
Plants & Animals
Criticism & Theory
Philosophy
Subjects & Themes
Art
Aesthetics
Contents 8
Series Foreword 10
Acknowledgments 12
Publication History 16
Introduction 20
1 Divine Plants and Magical Animals 28
2 Aesthetic Effects of Domestication 38
3 The Rainforests of Domestication 48
4 The Rise of Ornamental Plants 60
5 Darwin’s Sublime 68
6 Playing God 74
7 Standards of Excellence 80
8 Doubles 88
9 Kitsch Plants 108
10 Bastard Flowers, Genetic Goofies, and Freud’s Bow Wows 120
11 Biotechnology in the Garden 134
12 Recent Art Involving DNA 138
13 Naming Life 152
14 Anthropocentrism and Genetic Art 160
15 The Angel of Extinction 170
16 Seven Breeding Complexes 180
17 The Slowest Art 198
18 Breeding for Wildness 204
Appendix 1 212
Appendix 2 218
Appendix 3 220
Appendix 4 222
Notes 224
Index 246

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George Gessert; Roger F. Malina; Sean Cubitt

Gessert, George

AAAI Press

Leonardo (Series) (Cambridge, Mass.), Cambridge, Mass, ©2010

Leonardo books, Cambridge, Mass, Massachusetts, 2010

United States, United States of America

Leonardo, Cambridge, Mass, 2012

Leonardo Book Series, 2012

Illustrated, 2012-02-10

1, PS, 2010

producers:
Acrobat Distiller 9.3.0 (Windows)

Memory of the World Librarian: Calamitous Annunciation

Memory of the World Librarian: Slowrotation

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Humans have bred plants and animals with an eye to aesthetics for centuries: flowers are selected for colorful blossoms or luxuriant foliage; racehorses are bred for the elegance of their frames. Bio art has become a genre; artists work with a variety of living things, including plants, animals, bacteria, slime molds, and fungi. Many commentators have addressed the social and political concerns raised by making art out of living material. In this publication Gessert examines the role that aesthetic perception has played in bio art and other interventions in evolution. He looks at a variety of life forms that humans have helped shape, focusing on plants--the most widely domesticated form of life and the one that has been crucial to his own work as an artist. Gessert surveys recent bio art and its accompanying philosophical problems, the 'slow art' of plant breeding, and how to create new life that takes into account what we know about ecology, aesthetics, and ourselves

Divine Plants And Magical Animals -- Aesthetic Effects Of Domestication -- The Rainforests Of Domestication -- The Rise Of Ornamental Plants -- Darwin's Sublime -- Playing God -- Standards Of Excellence -- Doubles -- Kitsch Plants -- Bastard Flowers, Genetic Goofies, And Freud's Bow Wows -- Biotechnology In The Garden -- Recent Art Involving Dna -- Naming Life -- Anthropocentrism And Genetic Art -- The Angel Of Extinction -- Seven Breeding Complexes -- The Slowest Art -- Breeding For Wildness. George Gessert. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [197]-218) And Index.

Ch. 1. Divine plants and magical animals
Ch. 2. Aesthetic effects of domestication
Ch. 3. The rainforests of domestication
Ch. 4. The rise of ornamental plants
Ch. 5. Darwin's sublime
Ch. 6. Playing God
Ch. 7. Standards of excellence
Ch. 8. Doubles
Ch. 9. Kitsch plants
Ch. 10. Bastard flowers
Ch. 11. Biotechnology in the garden
Ch. 12. Recent art involving DNA
Ch. 13. Naming life
Ch. 14. Anthropocentrism and genetic art
Ch.15. The angel of extinction
Ch. 16. Seven breeding complexes
Ch. 17. The slowest art
Ch. 18. Breeding for wildness.

2025-10-27