LIFESCIENCE: First Statement Birgit Richard

[lifescience-owner@aec.at]

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ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL 99
LIFESCIENCE
Linz, Austria, September 04 - 09
http://www.aec.at/lifescience
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Ars Electronica 99
Festival for Art, Technology and Society
LifeScience
September 4-9, 1999


Prof. Birgit Richard


Statement: 
Net Symposium LifeScience

1. Thesis: Hegemony of the genes?
Against the myth created by the industrial complex of life sciences, mankind 
is still not at the point to be totally entangled in the structure of his genes
that tell the whole story  about every individual. Genes as the microstructure
of the body are embedded in a social context consisting for example of social
relations or nutritition factors which influence the human 
genome system. 

2. Thesis: Art forms life?
Marcel Duchamps "Trois stoppage etalon" made clear that all measures and 
scales are manmade, not given by god or to be found as given by so called 
"laws of nature". 
Art could be an important instrument to visualize the microstructural processes
of life science  as it did with the fractals. But to gain more social 
effectiveness than to contribute to an art market, artists should engage 
themselves in creating genetic artistic products of their own together with 
genetic engineers.

Genetic engineering and biotechnology are turning out plants and animals-the 
living environment of human beings-on an ever-increasing scale and are thus
creating structures of life that are inescapable and artificially rigged-up. 
This quotidian construction and production of nature provokes intense 
opposition, although this is, in essence, a process which mankind has been 
engaged in since the very dawn of civilization. But when it comes to employing
genetic engineering in the service of medicine to wipe out diseases one by one 
and thus ultimately to improve the lot of mortal men and women, there is 
widespread approval for this technology. The positive reaction to the life 
sciences-genetic engineering and biotechnology-is connected with the age-old 
human dream of immortality. On the other hand, the fear in the face of the 
threat posed by phenomena such as genetically-manipulated foodstuffs is fed 
by the realization that this dream remains unfulfilled by these technologies
and, like every stage which has preceded it, this one has its price and bears 
with it the inherent risk of uncontrollable development.

Popular culture narratively and visually propagates the prospects and defects 
of this technology. It announces in a manner as trivial as it is candid the 
problems that are in store. For example, implemented genetic engineering plays
a central role in the US cartoon series Southpark which will be running in 
Europe this summer. In this show, cloning as well-intentioned improvement 
upon nature has already become a part of everyday life. In school, designing 
new creatures is a homework assignment, and gets out of control. One of the 
series' chief set locations is a genetic engineering lab, a place of 
unfortunate occurrences from which creatures resulting from experiments gone 
awry break out on a regular basis-an evil clone of one of the children, or 
turkeys that turn wild and destroy the hamlet of Southpark.

The medium of film shows that duplication in the desired form of identical 
reproduction is impossible. There are always problems with doppelgaengers 
who develop a mind of their own and raise the question of differentiating 
between the original and the reproduction. Only the perfect doppelgaenger is 
not dangerous; a clone with variant qualities leads to schizophrenia. 
Popular culture also contradicts the erroneous opinion that once a man's DNA 
is decoded, he can be read like a book, since popular culture emphasizes the 
important connection of the development of genetic information in social 
contexts. A film like Gattaca dismisses the widespread opinion that the gene 
is almighty-the significance of the right genetic fingerprint is called into 
question. The human being's genetic complex remains a construct and an abstract
simulacrum if it does not coincide with a corporeal being existing in a social
context.

Artists and designers are already disseminating design proposals in other media
besides film and cartoons. Now it's high time to work in collaboration with
scientists directly in the same medium of the life sciences and to put forth, 
alongside an industrially-formed genetic world, a purely aesthetically-
motivated variant.
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