Mice in the library!
October 10, 2019
Rolling dice means lucky mice.
That’s the premise behind artist Joe Davis’ work Lucky Mice, which is part of the art-science exhibition Art’s Work in the Age of Biotechnology: Shaping Our Genetic Futures opening Thursday, Oct. 17 at the Gregg Museum of Art & Design and the exhibit spaces of the Hill and Hunt Libraries.
Davis will have a live mouse in the Hill Library Exhibit Gallery on Thursday, Oct. 17 from 10:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. in an experiment that observes serendipitous behaviors with a mouse-operated dice-throwing apparatus and pursues in vivo selective breeding of “lucky mice.” This scientifically rigorous approach will abide by protocols for ethical research and humane treatment of laboratory animals. Use of live mice highlights human-animal relationships in art and science and examines protocols underlying use and care of laboratory animals.
Davis will talk about his work at a free pizza lunch event in the second floor Assembly Room from 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Lucky Mice was inspired by Larry Niven’s fictional Ringworld series where aliens carry on secret experiments to enhance good luck through human breeding. While serendipity might be ascribed to chance, closer examination suggests it is chance coupled with coincidence. Both the judgment to recognize and the ability to accommodate unexpected events underlie all serendipitous discovery. History recounts many unexpected accidents that, through reasoning and deduction, become transformed into opportunity. Investigations of luck have been undertaken in psychology, cognitive science, information science and economics, but correlations of serendipity and genetics have never been studied.
Davis pioneered laser carving methods at Bell Telephone Labs and U. Cincinnati Medical Center in the 1970s. In 1981, he joined MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies as Research Fellow and Lecturer. His Microvenus (1986) was the first genetically engineered artwork. Davis joined Alexander Rich’s laboratory at MIT in 1989 and the Harvard laboratory of George Church in 2010 as “Artist Scientist.” Davis is also affiliated with Thomas Schwartz’s Lab at MIT and Ashley Seifert’s Lab at University of Kentucky.