Alba (rabbit)

The luminous rabbit (English usually referred to as GFP Bunny) is an action by the Brazilian artist Eduardo Kac. Kac had announced the breeding of a fluorescent animal at the 1999 Ars Electronica, thereby however, still spoken by a dog as an experimental animal. The fluorescence should be achieved that in the genome of the animal, the green fluorescent protein of the jellyfish Aequorea victoria has been installed. After consultation with a French curator Kac decided to run the test on a rabbit, and sat down with Louis -Marie Houdebine from the Paris Institut National de la Recherche en Agronomy in conjunction. Houdebine agreed to the experiment, which should be presented at a 2000 art exhibition held in Avignon. Even before the opening of the exhibition were a further investment and a transfer of a rabbit to the artist but by the then Director of the Institute, Paul Vial, prevented. At this time Houdebine had already bred several rabbits with the gene for the fluorescent protein, including that of Kac on the name "Alba" baptized animal. According to later testimony Houdebines this rabbit was not explicitly bred for Kac, but a part of a research series, in which the GFP gene was used only for identification of other things.

The project has now caused a big media frenzy which was taken beyond the art and science audience. Kac initiated then under the title Free Alba an action for the liberation of the rabbit, which was unsuccessful, but with poster campaigns and other art works the myth nurtured ( the Canadian writer Margaret Atwood mentioned example ausgewilderte GFP rabbit as descendants of an experiment in their science fiction Oryx and Crake novel ). Houdebine reported in 2002 the death of the animal; death was not done by the genetic manipulation, but would fall into the usual four-year life span of laboratory animals. The age would not in this case coincide with Eduardo Kac 's statement, which continues to claim that the rabbits had been bred only in 2000 and exclusively for his art project. Kac designated Houdebines statement as a diversionary tactic, which should protect the institution of further media attention. Houdebine however, raises Kac claims to have published data on the visible only under laboratory conditions staining of the rabbit excessive and unabgesprochen ( " The scientific fact is did the rabbit is not green [ ... ] He should have never published that. This was very disagreeable for me. " )