An on-line magazine for beginners in biotechnology, with all the practical advice on how to install a self-made laboratory in your own kitchen or bedroom, where to get used discounted equipment and what should be the first experiments.
BIOTECH HOBBYIST MAGAZiNE is the place on the Web for biotech tinkerers, builders, experimenters, students, and others who love the intellectual challenge and stimulation of hobby biotech !
In the foreword the creators of the net-based art project say:
Dear Biotech Hobbyist Magazine Reader,
Biotech Hobbyist Magazine is a magazine tailored specifically for the biotech enthusiast. We recognise that some of the greatest cult ural and technological advances have emerged from peoples bedrooms and are therefore committed to transferring the hitech life sciences to the bedroom biotechnician. We are looking forward to offering a range of exciting projects, informative product reviews and fun competitions.
Kindly pay special attention to the entrances of Tree Cloning and Skin Culture with the description of the kits necessary to start your home-based experiments on cloning and cell growing.
Robert Mitchell in “BioArt and the vitality of media” points out interesting aspects of the current project. Firstly, such magazine shifts the role of the member of the public allowing him “to occupy the position of experimenter rather than to function simply as a donor (of tax money and materials) or consumer”.
Another important aspect is related to the usage of Internet as a publication venue. Such decentralised distribution leads to a slightly threatening position of an artwork: “the communication medium on which the project relies- the Internet- is such that, even if I do not personally perform any of the experiments described on the Website, the project can nevertheless affect me. Thus, the mere fact that these descriptions are available on the Internet, in combination with the fact that the other people who access the Internet are potentially linked to me through the “media” of city interactions or airplane travel, means that I am linked to the consequences of what others might do with these experiments”.
Remaining simultaneously exciting and threatening makes The Biotech Hobbyist magazine still valid today despite the last entry being published in March 2004.