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Unfortunately the artist has not been credited, but this illustration is reproduced in The Rare Breeds Handbook by Derek Wallis, Blanford Press 1986.

Looks like it could be a detail found in a larger engraving.

Meeting with David MacHugh

Had a good chat with David about slightly new direction of works for the Ploughing Champs.

After consulting with Dovea Genetics, we came to the realisation that not every calf selected to represent their bull-stud farm may be comfortable with wearing a sculpture.

Despite a trait like aggression being gradually bred out of the species, each will still have its own temperament – some will be more placid than others and more happy to wear an object on its back.

Up until relatively recently cows and bulls were triple purpose animals - that is, bred for three things: milk, meat and labour (pulling a plough for example). Nowadays they are dual purpose - bred for milk or meat (or both). Their role as a draft animal is no longer needed as we now rely on machinery such as tractors for any heavy work.

The image of a cow as a draft animal is not one we are familiar with in the present day – though perhaps just in renderings of a past way of life when a direct relationship to the agrarian was commonplace.

This defunct image – of a cow/bull being attached to some angular equipment is something I will be thinking about. The unification of animal with mechanism in order to cultivate the surrounding landscape.

Back to the Ploughing Championships – I will concentrate on making four sculptural works for the calves. Which calves will wear them will be decided closer to the event.

Dovea Genetics are very active in keeping in touch with the farmers who purchase their bulls semen, as it is important for them to keep track of the resulting offspring. The data collected from this offspring (milk yield, carcass weight etc.) is collected and fed back into the ICBF (Irish Cattle Breeding Federation) database. This means when choosing which bull you wish to sire your future herd, you can see what kind of results can be expected.

Heredity in live stock by Christian Wriedt. London : Macmillan & Co., 1930

MERL LIBRARY--4340-WRI

Visit to the Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading 19th century livestock paintings

I spent a few days in the Museum of English Rural Life looking through its collection of 19th century livestock paintings and prints, as well as its collection of corn craft work.

These livestock paintings were commissioned by wealthy livestock breeders in order to record the impressive proportions their prize-winning beasts for posterity. However, some of these artists were put under pressure by their commissioners to accentuate certain features of the animals physical characteristics.

The establishment of a 'breed' sometimes involved inbreeding – mating a bull with one of its close relatives in order to accentuate particular inherited physical characteristics. As one can imagine, this does not work as a long term strategy as the lack of diversity within the genes leads to deformity.

S.N.P.

Single Nucleotide Polymorphism: a variation in a single base pair in a DNA sequence.

SNPs look at particular locations on the genome which are known to have an effect on the phenotype of an animal. They do not look at the entire genetic sequence, which in a bovine animal contains three billion base pairs (A-T and C-G). All these base pairs make up twenty-two thousand genes.

Phenotype is the outward expression of a genotype - something that we, on the outside can see such as colour, or a large rump for example.

Phenotypes are also say, the amount of milk a female cow will produce, or how easily she may deliver a calf.

Change in project title

I've decided to change the working name of this project from Genetic Bull Sculpture Project to Genomic Bull sculpture project. Its not a huge change but a more specific word when making reference to the science being used in the modern cattle breeding industry.

Genomics: the branch of molecular biology concerned with the structure, function, evolution, and mapping of genomes.

Genetics: the study of heredity and the variation of inherited characteristics.

The oktopure machine at Weatherbys. Quite mesmerizing to watch as its movements are so smooth and precise. At one point it was rinsing the samples in and out of the pipettes over and over again, and sounded like a heart beating.

#illumina

Visit to the DNA Lab at Weatherbys Limited in Kildare

Weatherbys Limited is the main DNA processing Lab (for animals) in Ireland. It is also one of the leading laboratories in the world in multi animal species pedigree verification.

This is where biological samples such as: skin, hair, blood or semen from a bovine animal is sent to be processed in order to get its genomic evaluation.

Romy Morrin-O'Donnell, scientific director at Weatherbys, very kindly allowed me into their lab to see the methods used to extract the DNA from the biological material. I spent some time with Dr. Rebecca Weld who took me through how everything is processed, and then what the information looks like on the computer screen.

The biological material is put into the oktopure machine, which extracts DNA from the sample through a series of actions, described as like washing and rinsing.

This produces a gel containing the DNA sample. This gel is then transferred onto an SNP chip (see below for SNP) and put into another machine, the Illumina.

An Illumina is customised to the owners specifications. Here in Ireland there are certain SNPs, or areas on the genome, that are of particular interest for different animals. The machine is programmed to focus on these specific areas in order to obtain the necessary information.

More about Weatherbys here:

https://www.weatherbys.co.uk/dna-lab

On its own, the information gathered as a result of this process can not tell us what to expect from the animal. Rather, it is a matter of comparing it with the statistical data that has been collected over the past fifteen years from tens of thousands of similar animals.

This information previously processed has been analyzed together with the outward production of the animal - amount of milk produced, how much meat and fat their carcass yields, for example.

When this has been done for a large amount of one breed of animal, then the genomic scientists can narrow down which part of the genome gives rise to a specific phenotype.

This would allow them to see if a particular animal carries the pattern for a genetic disease, which they may decide is not a good idea to propagate, and will advise the farmer to not allow that animal to have any calves. In effect, breeding the likelihood of that disease out of the herd.

#weatherbys #illumina

Studio

For the next twelve months I will have a studio in University College Dublin as part of their artist-in-residence program in the school of science. This ties in really well with my Bull sculpture project, as one of my scientific collaborators is also based in UCD - Professor David MacHugh is Associate Dean for Research, Innovation and Impact in the School of Agriculture & Food Science in UCD.

http://www.ucd.ie/conway/research/researchers/conwayfellowsa-z/professordavidmachugh/

My studio is located in Science Centre North and was part of the old first year physics teaching labs, with beautiful built in wooden benches.

More about the artist-in-residence program here:

http://www.ucdartinscience.com/parity-studios-artists-in-resi/4579007317

Wellcome Trust Application successful

I was delighted to learn the Wellcome Trust decided to support my ‘Genomic Bull Sculpture’ project with a Small Arts Award.

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Genomic bull sculpture project