Stem cell research has come a long way: we can now programme entire units of human tissue to be anything we want them to be. And like Lego blocks, these living modules can be connected together to build a larger biological entity, as biotechnologist Cornelis Vlasmann has demonstrated with Oscar, a prototype creature made entirely from clickable organ modules grown from human cells.
This is the premise of interactive science-fiction art experience The Modular Body, an online storytelling project complete with fictional TV show interviews, Skype chats and video footage of the lab where the lines between human and machine begin to blur. The ethics, regulatory issues and moral conundrums associated with this kind of futuristic research are explored as Vlasman starts giving his own blood to Oscar to keep it alive. This Dutch art project might be looking to a fictional future but it is inspired by existing technologies such as 3D bioprinting, which is being used to print human tissue.
