Artie Vierkant

vierkantstudio@gmail.com

Plant expression constructs (Exploits)

For Plant expression constructs, an allotment of genetically modified soybean seed was secured from Monsanto, a large multinational agrochemical and agriculture biotechnology corporation. This process typically entails the signing of a ‘technology stewardship agreement’, a legal agreement which places certain strictures on the use and distribution of any farm seed registered by Monsanto as its intellectual property. The term ‘technology’ in the title of this agreement should be indicative—-within the structure of large scale corporate agriculture the organic material itself is a commodity, while the genetic information that makes up the seed is considered a technology worthy of cautious protection. According to information provided by the seed distributor, the seeds in these works are protected by “one or more” of nine separate genetic patents.

Exploits is a series of work utilizing existing intellectual properties which are licensed or purchased from their current owner. The intellectual properties are taken as a set of negotiated guidelines within which physical works may be produced, and as a set of norms to be deviated from. Each negotiation is unique: the property owner may set legal barriers to the contexts in which the IP can be presented, limit the amount of derivative works that may be produced to a set number, or to a period of time. Further a certain IP itself may be valid for use only within certain contexts—a Trademark specifically for apparel, for example. These stipulations manifest in each case in a unique contract between myself and the IP holder.

Intellectual property becomes within this series a symbolic object underscoring the relationship between the social structures that formalize what would otherwise be abstract (the virtual, the ‘immaterial’) and the manifestation of those structures through physical objects and imagery. The model and the depiction. In each case, the IP is one which has already been registered by another entity—Exploits is the process of locating objects which already exist as territories, and transposing said territories into another context through a transaction.