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Vincent van Gogh’s ear is nearly as famous as his jaw-dropping Starry Night. Though its final resting place may never be found — as the legend goes, he severed off part of his ear and then gave it to a prostitute — museum goers in New York can get a look at the next best thing. ArtNet‘s Sarah Cascone reports that a living replica of van Gogh’s ear, created using the artist’s DNA, is now on display at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts in New York City.
The ear is the gruesome brainchild of Diemut Strebe, a conceptual artist who partnered with scientists from MIT and other universities to create a copy of van Gogh’s ear. Using DNA extracted from a stamp licked by the artist, as well as cell samples collected from van Gogh’s great-great-grandnephew, Strebe and team created “Sugababe,” an artificially grown ear suspended in a clear gel.
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Visitors don’t have to merely look at the ear — they can talk into it, too. On her website, Strebe writes that “the input sound is connected to a computer processor, using a software program to generate simulated nerve impulses from the sound signal in real time. They mimic sounds recorded from an electrode inserted into the auditory nerve, when firing.” Noam Chomsky was the first person to speak into the ear after it debuted in Germany in 2014.
Read full, original post: This Ear Was Made With Vincent Van Gogh’s DNA
