LIFESCIENCE: Re: art/science?

[Eugene Thacker <maldoror@eden.rutgers.edu>]

---------------------------------------------------------
ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL 99
LIFESCIENCE
Linz, Austria, September 04 - 09
http://www.aec.at/lifescience
---------------------------------------------------------
Enzo Minarelli wrote:
> 
> If I am allowed, Eugene, to quote another of my favourite philosopher, Kierkegaard, more than one century ago,
> (1844) he declared that it was absolutely wrong “to explain everything  according  to the principle of
> cause-effect...”.
> So, going further, art and science can’t be mixed.

Well I'm going to play devil's advocate a little here, because I've
never been quite convinced of the implicitly a priori, self-evident,
qualitative incommensurabilities between "art" and "science" - I think
that ultimately we need to look at the socio-historical contingencies of
these categories and the discourses and practices they signify. I _do_
think that there are important distinctions between them, and I don't
support more relativist notions that there is simply no difference
because everyone's creative, etc.

But then maybe we need to clarify _why_ it makes sense that there are
important differences between art and science....to me it makes sense
because "art" and "science" are of course historically and socially
rooted categories which dynamically enframe, at a given moment and in a
given context, a range of discourses and activities. No, because art and
science are historically contingent, it doesn't mean they "don't exist." 

Now, I think that it is precisely because there are these constructed
distinctions (which often come down to their particular way of being
enframed) that the formation of more complicated networks becomes
possible. This is, I think, one of Bruno Latour's main points with
regard to the modern division of knowledge - while modern forms of
knowledge (think of Diderot & d'Alambert's Encyclopedia project) proceed
by a rational organization of empirical objects, this process - what
Latour calls "purification" - is always mirrored and/or preceeded by a
more heterogeneous zone of "mediation," where objects and practices
exist without the kind of rigid classification which produced
dictionaries, encyclopedias, and taxonomies (for example, a "science" of
medicine certainly pre-dates the Enlightenment, but it is not
differentiated in the same way from anatomy, surgery, pathology,
divination, witchcraft, and alchemy).

Again this is not to relativise things or to suggest that we should go
back to this ecstatic state where everything is linked to everything
else, but what does seem to be at stake here is the production of
knowledge. The production of knowledge, and also the implementation,
utilization, dissemination, and application of knowledge. On that level,
I think there a numerous crossings, hybridizations, and tensions
between, say, the life sciences and artistic practice (this year's
festival & the projects in it is just one example)...

eugene


> Let me talk about my personal experience in the area of sound poetry.

ps - can you do the Ursonata?
-- 
]]]] bioinformatic bodies ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] _
]]]]]]]]]]]]] http://gsa.rutgers.edu/maldoror/index.html
]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] _ ]]]]]] ftp_formless_anatomy ]]]]]]]]
http://www.formless.org ]]]]]]]] _ ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
maldoror@eden.rutgers.edu ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] _ ]]]]]]]]]]]] _
]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] _ ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] _
]]]]]]]]]]] Fake_Life Platform ]]]]
http://web.t0.or.at/fakeshop/fake_life.html ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] _ ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
You are subscribed to the English language version of LIFESCIENCE
To unsubscribe the English language version send mail to
lifescience-en-request@aec.at (message text 'unsubscribe')
Send contributions to lifescience@aec.at
--------------------------------------------------------------------------