A stunning hardcover book with a special cover and paper that feels soft like skin/silk, counting 160 pages.

Bulletproof skin, Exploring Boundaries by Piercing Barriers, a beautiful book of art & writing about project 2.6g 329m/s, a BioArt project by Artist Jalila Essaidi. The goal of this art project was to create a bullet-resistant human skin through the fusion of human cells and spider silk proteins. Spider silk is “stronger” than steel, providing the ideal concept material for making light bulletproof armor or, in this case – bulletproof skin. The spider silk proteins employed originated from genetically modified organisms, including goats and silkworms. The skin, tested at the Forensic Genomics Consortium Netherlands / the Netherlands Forensic Institute at the ballistics department, successfully warded off bullets fired at reduced speed. The project received the Designers & Artists 4 Genomics Award conceived by the Netherlands Genomics Initiative and the CSG Centre for Society and the Life Sciences as well as an honorary mention in the Hybrid Art category of Prix Ars Electronica 2012. This was truly a “bullet heard round the world”— Jalila’s story was immediately picked up by the Associated Press, the Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, CNN, EuroNews and the BBC, among numerous others, and she has subsequently given interviews throughout the world.

After introducing the Essaidi story the book will launch into several related inquiries. Thus, this book has multiple layers, much like the bulletproof skin itself. The authors contributing to the volume will examine the various dimensions of the artistic, scientific, ethical, socio-political, global and communicative and reflect on spider silk, genetically modified goats, special ballistic gel and enhanced human skin. All of these dimensions of human life confront unexpected questions and new horizons through the creation of bulletproof skin.