Romulus and Remus, our first Dire Dire Spring.
Greetings, my dear artists and art lovers. It's a pleasure to be part of our beloved community again and to be able to publish new lines on my blog.
Today I'm joining the Spring Challenge organized by our platform @nftshowroom with this piece, titled Dire Spring, which I minted today:
https://nftshowroom.com/gallery/sembrandounpais_premium-ai-arts_dire-spring
With the creation of this piece, I also echo a trend that spread around the world in just a few hours and continues to generate a lot of buzz a few days after the news broke.
Those in the know will already know that I'm talking about Romulus and Remus, not the two brothers credited with founding Rome, but rather the two Dire Wolf pups born last year, whose existence was announced on April 7 by Colossal Biosciences.
For my part, I wanted to take advantage of this trend to conceptualize my spring this week as a representation of renewal, and in this case, it's a very special renewal because it's not only a generational renewal but also the renewal of a species that was extinct, or at least that's how the issue has been presented, and we'll certainly talk a bit about the controversy later.
But the first thing I want to express about the work is that instead of a frozen tundra, I chose a spring forest as the setting for Romulus and Remus, representing the possibility of the renewal of their species. And for those more knowledgeable on the subject, I clarify that I said possibility because, adhering to scientific rigor, this is really only a possibility; furthermore, it's still very premature to talk about the de-extinction of the species.
At the same time, I want to emphasize the words I added to the description of the work, found right at the beginning of the post. I express that this is just the beginning, and regardless of opposing ethical or scientific considerations, this will continue to be done.
That said, I want to talk a little about the controversy and give my opinion. I believe that art is not only about depicting beautiful things but also has a social character and should be involved in all kinds of issues that affect our society, in this case, bioengineering, ethics, and biology.
In my humble opinion, and based on the knowledge I have been able to acquire, thank God, I believe this is not about the resurrection of a species, but rather an attempt, so far successful. It's worth noting here that the DNA of a gray wolf—a still-existing species and the most common wolf—was edited to reveal characteristics attributed to the dire wolf. This is based on genetic research conducted with DNA extracted from the fangs and skulls of two different specimens separated by thousands of years, but which certainly contributed to deciphering a significant part of the genome of this extinct species.
Now, if we look at what could be understood at the biological level by species, we cannot say that the dire wolf has returned from extinction because not all of its genome is present in these pups. Therefore, not all of the species' biological characteristics are present, and it remains extinct.
What we can say is that we can have a physical, vivid idea of what a Dire Wolf would have looked like, and perhaps it's still too early to know if, through these pups, we could observe, at least in part, how this species behaved.
In any case, we could say that these pups are hybrids of the Dire Wolf and the Gray Wolf. Although hybridization commonly involves crossing between species, in this case, rather than a cross where genetic material is naturally shared, what was done was to edit the DNA of a creature to modify its genetic characteristics and make it resemble another animal, as I've mentioned before.
Likewise, there are unknowns that only time will answer, and one of them is whether these animals are capable of procreating. In many cases where hybridization occurs, the resulting specimen is not capable of procreating.
We would also have to wait for these pups to reach adulthood and see if their behavior as adults resembles what we know about the Dire Wolf. It should also be noted that most of the prey these animals hunted are already extinct, including mammoths and camels native to North America. Perhaps the bison is one of the largest prey animals still preying on Earth.
Likewise, based on what I've researched to determine whether we can speak of de-extinction or not, it's necessary for the company to publish all its studies in a scientific journal (which the Times certainly isn't) to give other scientists the opportunity to fully analyze them and for the different academies to draw their own conclusions and try to reach an agreement on how to define this.
In short, I believe that this Dire Spring not only brings us new life, but also many uncertainties and questions that remain in the air, perhaps to be answered with the passage of time, with the passing of the seasons, and many of them may go many springs without an answer, or at least a concise answer.
And so, my friends, I conclude today's post, and I hope you enjoyed the work. I also apologize if I've stirred a bit of controversy, but as I said before, art should also have social purposes and should dare to address themes of this nature.
Well, artists are not only sensitive people who present beautiful things to others, but our works can also generate discussion, make people think, and can provoke criticism or reflection. In a certain way, an artist could be a social actor, or perhaps they should be.
Before I say goodbye, I'd like to mention that I created this work using artificial intelligence. The app I used was Starry AI, and if you haven't heard of it yet, I recommend looking for it in the Play Store (it has a free version, by the way).
To arrive at this piece, I made many other versions. I admit, too many because I struggled to settle on just one, and many of them seemed excellent, but not enough to express the concepts I wanted. So I spent a long time creating like crazy until I arrived at this one.
Once I finished it, I applied several tweaks to improve it and adapt it to my style.
And now, I have nothing more to express than my deep gratitude to all of you for following me, for visiting my blog, and for viewing my art. Thank you so much for your continued support, and I hope to see you in the next post.