Amy Karle (born 1980) is an American artist, bioartist, and futurist whose work focuses on the relationship between technology and humanity, specifically how technology and biotechnology impact health, humanity, society, evolution, and the future. Karle combines science and technology with art and is known for using living tissue in her work.
Karle has served as an Artist Diplomat through the United States Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, where she led workshops focusing on women's empowerment in STEAM fields. In 2019, she was named one of the BBC's 100 women.
Personal life
Karle was born in New York in 1980 and grew up in Endicott, NY. Her mother was a biochemist and her father was a pharmacist and Karle has said she "grew up in the lab and in the pharmacy". Karle is an alumnus of the School of Art and Design at Alfred University and Cornell University where she received degrees in Art and Design and Philosophy.
Karle was born with a rare condition, aplasia cutis congenita, missing a large region of skin on her scalp and also missing bone in her skull. She underwent a series of experimental surgical procedures as a child. The skin was repaired by tissue expansion surgery that was considered dangerous and experimental at the time that it was performed. This experience impacted her work and desire to heal and enhance the human body and human condition. This early experience also inspired her interest in the links between biology, medical futuring and art.
Work
Karle researches and explores the impact of technology on bodily enhancement through her artwork.
Her sculpture, Regenerative Reliquary (2016) features a 3D-printed bioprinted hydrogel scaffold shaped like the bones of a human hand placed inside a glass vessel. Human Mesenchymal stem cells from a living donor were placed on the scaffold which over time grew into bone. It has been exhibited internationally.
Karle has created a number of artworks and performances using biofeedback and neurofeedback including: A work from 2011, Biofeedback Art, was a durational performance where Karle's body was connected to a Sandin Image Processor that detected the changes that occur while she meditated over periods of 5–8 hours. Video art was created in the form of projections during the process. In 2015, Brainsongs involved connecting her brain activity via an EEG neuroheadset to musical instruments in a digital interface to output music. In the same year, Resonation involved an EEG neuroheadset connected to a Chladni plate to generate bio-signals into visuals and sounds. Her 2018 Performance in Salt Mine was conducted in the Bochnia Salt Mine and Wieliczka Salt Mine using an EEG neuroheadset to translate her brainwaves into digital music and projected visualizations, which were later used in a planetarium film she made.
Internal Collection (2016–17) is a series of garments based on human anatomy. The fabrication consists of 3D body scanning, computer-aided design, laser cutting, and hand-sewing techniques to create representations of internal body systems.
Cyborg Fashion (2022-2023) is a digital art and fashion collection where Karle envisions "biofashion in a post-natural world when bodies and beings are altered by biotechnology".
The Body and Technology: A Conversational Metamorphosis (2017) is a collection of 2D artworks by Amy Karle made by hand and with artificial neural networking, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. In this body of work, Karle coupled artificial intelligence in healthcare with generative design to devise a system for leveraging AI in the diagnosis of disease, with generative CAD designing replacement parts, and 3D bioprinting to create implants.
Morphologies of Resurrection (2020) is a series of 6 sculptures created as part of a Smithsonian residency. Karle's process examined the possibilities of reconstructive technologies and future evolution through biotechnological advancements. The artworks are novel evolutionary forms based upon extinct species to explore “hypothetical evolutions through technological regeneration”, 3D printed in biocompatible material. They were exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution.
Karle was mentioned in 2019 as one of the BBC's 100 women.