Bringing Bones to Life

"Amy Karle’s artistic journey is profoundly influenced by her upbringing in the laboratory of her mother, a scientist. This environment can be envisioned as the stage where Karle interprets and enacts her art, a place where inquiry and creativity converge. Within the confines of this scientific realm, she likely cultivated her curiosity and articulated her questions, leading to a body of work that dug deeply into the processes of defining the human experience.

The work “Regenerative Reliquary” is a poignant embodiment of her research that engages with cutting-edge biotechnologies. This piece features a bioprinted scaffold sculpted in the form of a human hand, crafted from biodegradable PEGDA hydrogel that naturally disintegrates over time. This installation, situated within a bioreactor, serves as a platform for human mesenchymal stem cells to be seeded, with the intention that these cells will proliferate and mineralize into bone tissue along the scaffold. This work stands as a testament to her innovative approach to art-making, where the boundaries of life, technology, and artistic expression blur.

Karle’s practice occupies a unique intersection of art, design, science, and technology, inviting us to reconsider what it means to be human in the context of the fourth industrial revolution. Engaging with a myriad of technological paradigms such as supercomputing, the Internet of things, autonomous vehicles, augmented and virtual realities, robotics, machine learning, and regenerative medicine, she navigates the complex technosphere that gives shape to our contemporary existence. 

Through these multifaceted processes, Karle posits profound inquiries about our identity and existence: What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be alive? She expands the discourse beyond mere technological frameworks, delving into the spiritual and emotional dimensions of the human experience."

-Mariano Sardon, curator