Re: LIFESCIENCE: Re: LIFE/SCIENCE?

[owner-lifescience-en@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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Hi Eugene,

Unfortunately, I managed (for the first -and hopefully last -time, in ten
years) to completely clean my hard-disk. This means my self-determined
computer destroyed the last 3 months of mail (plus address book) before I
could process and archive everything.

So now I can only contact people after I have recieved something from them.
This is especially unfortunate because I never did get the recept for lamb
from Helen -while in the next few weeks I expect to leave for Wales, the
land of the (radio active -genetically modified -etc..) lamb!

Also, I am still hoping that we will be able to move ahead with her proposed
project -if you are still willing to collabourate.

It also seems that you are one of the last people to continue flogging the
dead
horse called "Lifescience", so a certain tenacity cannot be denied.

On 17-Jul-99, Eugene Thacker wrote:

>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...

The apparent death of the list is a great pity because I do enjoy your
contributions, which in my view are dealing with important issues -and I
believe it is neccessary (even essential) sometimes to be academic, pedantic
and generallly hair-splitting. In fact the (visual) arts seem to be brain
dead because they are unable to deal with the different "cultural
revolutions" which have occured. Primarily, they have lost all pretence of
any "meta-language" (still present in music or literary theory) and have
therefore become autistic children, lost in their individualistic world of
"self-expression".

Clearly, your background in biology has brought you to valuable areas of
(historical) knowledge outside the usual artistic/literary paths.

I cannot match you on these historical points. However, my experiences
within the institute for electronic music where I did post-graduate
studies (as a deaf artist) has perhaps had a parallel effect on me.

So, although my area of expression is different (more a
theoretical/philosophical approach to mathematics/art with a touch of physics)
it clearly appears (to me) to be rooted in the same earth.

As an example I can quote (my interpretation -from memory) the 3 stage
definition of
"Sonology" by my old mentor Dr. W. Kaegi:

-Data gathering (experience)
-Data reduction (theory forming)
-Data mapping   (interpretation -i.e. mapping "extern data" to "internal
effect")

Although he was applying it to sound and speech generation, it seems to be
an easily generalised model which will fit into most creative processes.

Birgit really seems to believe that she 'lives dangerously' ("only dangerous
things are interesting") so there is probably little hope of explaining to
her how she has removed all the intellectual excitement from the discussion
and
replaced it by banality and commercialized popularisation.

Perhaps we can continue privately (maybe concerning the more generalised
art/science relationship -alhough certainly from out our individual
specialisaions). For a long time I have believed that "hard-core thinking"
(wihout falling into cliches) is more important (in the early stages) than
"large scale communication". Unfortunaely, one needs to communicate in
order to find the few people with which it is worthwhile communicating.
Until now I have never been able to get this (paradox) reasonably ballanced.

I cannot help thinking that the horrors of the biological laboratory are
somehow less frightening than the terrifying "mental foot-binding" which
goes on within the "art(s) education system".

Biological systems presumably obey a (complex, but coherent) internal logic
and need to be "sustainable" in order to survive. Cultural systems seem to
have lost everything except the instinct for self-survival. Unfortunately, I
do not see how humanity can survive the problems it creates wihout some
effective form of "defence mechanism". If "religious fundamentalism"
(christian, moslim or artistic) is the only answer humanity can find -then
we should seriously fear the future.

With best wishes and friendly greetings,
trevor


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