Tal Danino | Eyebeam

Tal Danino

Pronouns: He/him
Date and place of birth: Los Angeles, CA
Current location: New York, NY
Year(s) of residency and/or fellowship: 2015–16, Project Resident

Tal Danino is an interdisciplinary artist and scientist exploring the emerging field of synthetic biology.

Danino engineers some of the smallest forms of life, in the form of “programmable” bacteria and transforms living microorganisms like bacteria and cancer cells from the laboratory into bioart works using various forms of media.

Danino’s works have been exhibited at Reeves House Visual Arts Center in Woodstock, GA, USA, Lillian Bradshaw Art Gallery in Dallas, TX, USA, Box Gallery in West Palm Beach, FL, USA, Paradise Art Space in Incheon, South Korea, Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria, Zurcher Gallery, in New York, USA, ArtJaws.com in Paris, France, Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing, in Beijing, China, Liberty Science Center in New Jersey, USA, Da Vinci Creative Biennial at Seoul Foundation of Arts and Culture – Seoul Art Space Geumchen in Seoul, South Korea, Vitenparken in As, Norway, Eyebeam in New York, USA, Boston Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, USA, Waterfall Mansion & Gallery in New York, USA, Galerie Xippas in Paris, France, The High Museum in Atlanta, USA, Tel Aviv Museum of Art in Tel Aviv, Israel, and many other places.

Originally from Los Angeles, He received B.S. degrees in Physics, Math, and Chemistry from UCLA and a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from UCSD, and did his postdoctoral research at MIT. He is a TED Fellow and did artist residencies at Eyebeam and Seed, and recently featured in 7×7 (Rhizome/New Museum) and Artists with Evidence. His work has been featured in many media outlets such as The New York Times, Nature, and WIRED. He is currently an Associate Professor at Columbia University and directs the interdisciplinary Synthetic Biological Systems Laboratory.

Tal Danino's Art Website

Eyebeam Project Resident (2015- 2016): To Scale Project Residency

Microuniverse was developed as part of his artist residency at Eyebeam. The series explores the controlled and chaotic forms of the microbial world and draws a connection to the larger universe as a whole.

Works from this series were exhibited at The Motor House (Baltimore) as part of the Culture as Medium, at Eyebeam (New York City) as part of To Scale, at Flux Factory (New York City) as part of Artificial Retirement, and The Seoul Art Space (Seoul) as part of Uncanny Valley.

The series was profiled by The Creators Project, A Synthetic Biologist’s Beautiful Palette of Bacteria Art, as well as by the TED Idea blog, here: The most beautiful bacteria you’ll ever see. In 2018, Microuniverse was shown at the Ideas Festival in Abu Dhabi and in a large display format at Liberty Science Center.

More about Eyebeam’s “To Scale” Group Exhibition from 2016

This work was exhibited at Eyebeam’s former space in Industry City, in a group exhibition, titled “To Scale” from May 14th – 26th, 2016.

To Scale:

Eyebeam opened its studios to the public for a two-week show of recent projects exploring concepts of scale. These projects, the result of six months of research, share an ability to switch with ease from the view up close to the distant perspective.

Whether shifting scale through physical size, optical resolution, biological complexity or political organizing, they show that reality can seem totally different depending on context or even viewpoint. The world is not flat, but round like a lens.

Eyebeam models a new approach to artist-led creation for the public good; we are a non-profit that provides significant professional support and money to exceptional artists for the realization of important ideas that wouldn’t exist otherwise. Nobody else is doing this.

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