LIFESCIENCE: Re: LIFE/SCIENCE?

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

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ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL 99
LIFESCIENCE
Linz, Austria, September 04 - 09
http://www.aec.at/lifescience
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Since, by the looks of things thus far, it appears that most of us on
this list are speaking more or less from the perspective of "art"
(?...), it might be good for us to also talk about the relation between
"life" and "science." I know I'll be accused of unnecessary academics in
this, but as artists, cultural activists, and theorists, we can also ask
about those moments when "life" became a science, under what contexts,
due to what kinds of influences, producing what results...

I'm going to be a bit reductive here, but the so-called medicalisation
of life - say, in the 18th century in Europe w/ the gradual rise of
institutionalized hospital systems, demographics, pathology, statistics,
etc.  - that people like Foucault discuss seems one important moment
when certain fields w/in science and medicine attempted to speak on
behalf of life.

This seems so pervasive now that it's perhaps too obvious to state: the
role of "vital statistics" not only in terms of medical knowledge, but
in terms of identification (of individuals, of population groups; in DNA
fingerprinting, health policy and records, genetic screening,
population/ethnic databases, etc.)  - this all points to one trend,
which is that the science of life is increasingly also meaning an
informatics of life. If, at one point, anatomy was destiny, is
(genetic/informatic) code now destiny? The tech knowledge of programming
suddenly takes on a different - hopefully more political - tone...

Eugene

-- 
]]]] 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 ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] _ ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
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