Steve Kurtz is a founding member of the award-winning art and theater collective, Critical Art Ensemble (CAE). . He is known for his work in BioArt, and Electronic Civil Disobedience, and because of his arrest by the FBI in May 2004. Steve Kurtz faced charge for 20 years of inprisionment.

In May 2004 the Kurtzes were preparing to present Free Range Grain, a project examining GM agriculture, at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), when Hope Kurtz died of heart failure. Emergency personnel who responded to Kurtz’s 911 call deemed the couple’s art suspicious, and called the FBI. The art materials consisted of several petri dishes containing three harmless bacteria cultures, and a mobile lab to test food labeled “organic” for the presence of genetically modified ingredients. As Kurtz explained, these materials had been safely displayed in museums and galleries throughout Europe and North America with absolutely no risk to the public.

Finally vindicated after four years of struggle, Kurtz, asked for a statement, responded stoically: “I don’t have a statement, but I do have questions. As an innocent man, where do I go to get back the four years the Department of Justice stole from me? As a taxpayer, where do I go to get back the millions of dollars the FBI and Justice Department wasted persecuting me? And as a citizen, what must I do to have a Justice Department free of partisan corruption so profound it has turned on those it is sworn to protect?”

The story of Kurtz is told in the film Strange Culture by filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson. The film was simultaneously screened and webcast to the Second Life game on January 22, 2007. It focuses on Kurtz’ art, character, and interaction with law enforcement