Re: LIFESCIENCE: twins

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ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL 99
LIFESCIENCE
Linz, Austria, September 04 - 09
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In einer eMail vom 04.08.99 22:24:02 MEZ, schreiben Sie:

<< Thema:    Re: LIFESCIENCE: twins
 Datum: 04.08.99 22:24:02 MEZ
 From:  thornton@proteometrics.com (K.D.Thornton)
 Sender:    owner-lifescience-en@aec.at
 Reply-to:  lifescience@aec.at
 To:    lifescience@aec.at

dear kd. thornton
welcome to the list and thank you for your contribution.

 I am also a latecomer, in that I have been lurking for some time now. As an
 artist who works with biology (bacteria, corpses, decay)

that sounds interesting what do you do exactly are you operating or 
manipulation the microstructures of these corpses?

 Your note raised an interesting point for me (as I trusted the yam theory
 on the basis of hormonal influences from food) regarding the art/science
 dichotomy, though this list may already have exhausted all possibilities of
 further discussion of this binary topic.
 
 Your conclusion,
 
 >Don't believe everything that you read (perhaps ask a geneticist...)
 
 inspired my following text as it addresses two of the issues I feel to be
 inherent in discussions of science and art, that currently:
 1. we look to science for answers regarding the origins of our existence 
(past)
 2. we look to art for the reasons/purpose for our existence (present and
 future)
 
 We are, I think, too apt to accept the offerings of science as we are led
 to  believe that it will provide the secrets to our origins. All
 information which flows from the source of "science" is considered valuable
 to the pursuit of this history. Hence the gullibility, and the reverence
 for which its offerings are regarded. Science is the new religion, and is
 approached with unshakable faith by its practicioners and audience.

would lifesciences as key technologies then be our new secularized religion?


 In effect though, historically (and I dare to venture, cross-culturally) we
 have relied on art and imagination to provide the answers of origins:
 Our most popular mythologies rely upon the insecurity regarding our
 parentage-- where we come from originally. In these mythologies I include
 the Bible, and all other long-standing literatures which attempt to ease
 these concerns. Science holds the potential to displace art's importance in
 this dilemma. 

I am forced to guess that art started out here: at the
 juncture of magic and the inexplicable. (i am hedging here: as an artist I
 do not wish to confront the possibility of obsolescence or redefinition of
 my "job description"...)

yes but art was always the way to express what is normally not possible to 
express. art then does not try to explain in all in detail, that is what 
science wants us to believe all is explicable.


 Fact is replacing imagination.
 But there are no reliable facts, only theories. Some theories have become
 codified, and present as facts without confirmation, but certainty issues
 forth from people hungry for resolution.

yes if you adopt one of these theories that are free of thinking for yourself 
e.g. about the "facts" of lifescience.

 
 Perhaps the paradigm shift here is present in that as human beings our core
 priorities haven't changed, but as artists our methods and techniques are
 being implemented under the auspices of the new religion [science], in
 order to gain sanction and validity. As artists, I think we seek the best
 methods, whether intuitively or strategically, to gain respect for our
 practices. Art became redefined, at some point, as an "individual pursuit"
 while still suggesting that "one man's soul-searching" (and I use gendered
 language quite consciously here) will provide answers for all the others.
 
 If the purpose of art has been to ease these concerns and offer
 explanations for the deepest and most un-addressable aspects of our
 psyches, then art and science are now twined in purpose, as science evolved
 as a different means offering solution to the same problem. The problem is
 now that the roles are displaced:
 Faith, once the agent of imagination and religion, has become a double agent.
 


 
 KD
 
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