“I will never forget VL — I shouldn’t have given it a name, I guess, but as it turns out, that is exactly how the artists expected me to react. VL was the small-scale prototype of a “leather” jacket grown in vitro. Like all in-vitro tissue, it was a living layer supported by a biodegradable polymer matrix, only in this case that matrix was shaped like a miniature coat. The artists started the project in a bioreactor at Columbia University and then brought it to MoMA, where it was installed in the exhibition galleries within its own incubator, fed nutrients, and monitored. At some point during the show, VL started growing too fast and one sleeve almost came apart. It was time to stop it, the artists decided. But did that mean killing it?”

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