LIFESCIENCE: CONTRIBUTION TO THE "LIFE SCIENCE" SYMPOSIUM DEBATE

["Guido MArtinero" <guidm@tin.it>]

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ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL 99
LIFESCIENCE
Linz, Austria, September 04 - 09
http://www.aec.at/lifescience
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From: " Discussion group onthe virtual self" (Donatella Bigoni, Margherita C=
attera, Piero Gilardi, Pier Luigi Gregori, Bruna Piras, Federica Russo, Elis=
abetta Tolosano)

BIOGENETICS IDEOLOGY: A PERVERSE WELDING BETWEEN REALITY AND IMAGINARY ?

The debate on Life science and on its most problematic social and cultural i=
mplications, such as for example the spreading of the biological determinism =
in our culture, underlines once again the peculiarities of the artistic expe=
riences as a tool for the critical analysis of the "stake into play" in the =
technological evolution. =0D
=0D
The artistic metaphor of works such as "Green fluorescent proteins" by Eduar=
do Kac e "Genochoice" by Elizabeth Preatner appear of a emblematic paradoxic=
ality. On one side the "transgenic" art testifies the conceptual overcoming =
of the clash between natural and artificial and between real and virtual, de=
molishing the taboo of the ontological naturality, on the other it asserts t=
he birth of a form of art identified tout court with the construction of lif=
e by means of techno-genetic assembly.=0D
=0D
If these transgenic works were simple effectual operations one could verify, =
according to the Lacalian psychoanalysis categories, a perverse welding betw=
een real and imaginary.=0D
=0D
Instead such metaphorical exclusion of the social symbolism must be referred =
to the ideology of the biological determinism underlying the present-day use =
of genetic engineering, including the "deviated" one, in the agricultural an=
d pharmaceutical business and in the biological weapons.=0D
=0D
The transgenic art highlightens, with the paradoxicality of its metaphors, o=
ften with greater lucidity than the ethical appeals of the bioengineers, tha=
t the symbolic dimension and thus the peculiar and collective subjectivity m=
ust be reintegrated in the life science and become the pivot of refoundation =
and self-government.=0D
=0D
In the atmosphere of "soft totalitarism" that accompanies the "marketing ori=
ented" developement of the biotechnologies, the subjectiveness, beginning fr=
om the free one of the artist, can operate in order to bring to surface both =
new vital needs and those new meaningful limits of which we feel the necessi=
ty.=0D
=0D
Such subjectivity, with its quantal and not linear connotations, implicitly =
requires that Life science has to be integrated with the ecology of the life=
-systems and thus contextualised into the cognitive process of the global co=
-evolution.=0D

The human biotechnological model that the transgenic art can prefigure, ther=
efore seems coherent with the original meaning of the term "bios", which sig=
nified the narration of life instead of simple "zoology", upon which today t=
he perverse capitalistic social ideology of the most part of the biotechnolo=
gical practices is hinged to.=0D



Turin, May 1999 DISCUSSION GROUP


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