When she was born, Amy Karle had a rare and potentially fatal condition. This experience fueled her desire to explore biomedical technologies as an artist. Her works trigger a profound reflection on the human condition, the body and its limitations, integrating medicine, design, philosophy, art and biotechnology. This article traces the artist’s profile, describing some of her most interesting works.
Art made with the new tools of the fourth industrial revolution, including 3D printing, digital tools and digital manufacturing serve to positively impact human evolution in ways not previously witnessed. Although the human condition, nature and events continue to capture the attention of artists, the utilization and exploration of these tools in the production of art and design makes advancements and innovations across many fields in ways that have the potential to influence and make contributions that fundamentally benefit humankind.
by Gerfried Stocker, Christine Schopf, & Hannes Leopoldseder Leveraging the intelligence of human stem cells, Amy Karle created "Regenerative Reliquary"... "Regenerative Reliquary" made artistic, scientific and technological advances as it required and inspired new innovations for its creation, as well as influencing a new way of thinking. Amy Karle’s bioart work expands opportunities for art and design, biomedical applications, healing and enhancing our bodies, and opens minds to create things that it was never possible to create before.
Switching up conventions about the body and beauty, the selections from her “Internal Collection” showing at FILE represent internal anatomy in external wearable form. Merging anatomy, fashion, and technology, each piece is created by hand and digital manufacturing technologies. By depicting designs inspired by anatomy, this work communicates that, when we share our likeness and what is going on inside of us, an opportunity is offered for finding beauty within ourselves and connection with others.
Amy Karle’s Biofeedback Artwork is another experiment in creating art through technology, and using the human body as part of the medium… In this piece, she uses existence and the movement within the human body to create visuals of that which cannot be seen… She brings into question our understanding and visualization of consciousness, and attempts to create something that can be seen and understood from something that cannot.
Amy Karle is an artist who has always been fascinated with mysteries of the body. Her most recent work uses the building blocks of life: cells. As an Artist in Residence at Pier 9, Amy collaborated with Autodesk to create “Regenerative Reliquary,” a sculpture consisting of 3D printed scaffolds for cell growth in a bioreactor. The intention is that stem cells seeded onto these scaffolds will grow into bone. She hopes that this project serves as a foundation for further exploration and opens conversations about the awe and mystery of life, transhumanism, synthetic biology, the future of medicine and implants,…
Time, illusion, and the dichotomy of loss and fulfillment frequently re-emerge in Amy Karle’s Artwork through time-based processes and ephemeral experiences. Amy Karle unifies the material and immaterial by creating Art around and about the body that may function as a transformative device to transcend the material and provide an experience of the unseen. This is integrated in the way Amy Karle often offers viewers situations where they may observe themselves from a removed perspective… a catalyst for the foregrounding of transformative energies contained in the polyvalent body.
