1. Thesis: Hegemony of the genes? Against the myth created by the industrial complex of life sciences, mankind is still not at the point to be totally entangled in the structure of his genes that tell the whole story about every individual. Genes as the microstructure of the body are embedded in a social context consisting for example of social relations or nutritition factors which influence the human genome system.

2. Thesis: Art forms life? Marcel Duchamps "Trois stoppage étalon" made clear that all measures and scales are manmade, not given by god or to be found as given by so called "laws of nature". Art could be an important instrument to visualize the microstructural processes of life science as it did with the fractals. But to gain more social effectiveness than to contribute to an art market, artists should engage themselves in creating genetic artistic products of their own together with genetic engineers.

Genetic engineering and biotechnology are turning out plants and animals-the living environment of human beings-on an ever-increasing scale and are thus creating structures of life that are inescapable and artificially rigged-up. This quotidian construction and production of nature provokes intense opposition, although this is, in essence, a process which mankind has been engaged in since the very dawn of civilization. But when it comes to employing genetic engineering in the service of medicine to wipe out diseases one by one and thus ultimately to improve the lot of mortal men and women, there is widespread approval for this technology. The positive reaction to the life sciences-genetic engineering and biotechnology-is connected with the age-old human dream of immortality. On the other hand, the fear in the face of the threat posed by phenomena such as genetically- manipulated foodstuffs is fed by the realization that this dream remains unfulfilled by these technologies and, like every stage which has preceded it, this one has its price and bears with it the inherent risk of uncontrollable development.

Popular culture narratively and visually propagates the prospects and defects of this technology. It announces in a manner as trivial as it is candid the problems that are in store. For example, implemented genetic engineering plays a central role in the US cartoon series Southpark which will be running in Europe this summer. In this show, cloning as well- intentioned improvement upon nature has already become a part of everyday life. In school, designing new creatures is a homework assignment, and gets out of control. One of the series' chief set locations is a genetic engineering lab, a place of unfortunate occurrences from which creatures resulting from experiments gone awry break out on a regular basis-an evil clone of one of the children, or turkeys that turn wild and destroy the hamlet of Southpark.

The medium of film shows that duplication in the desired form of identical reproduction is impossible. There are always problems with doppelgängers who develop a mind of their own and raise the question of differentiating between the original and the reproduction. Only the perfect doppelg„nger is not dangerous; a clone with variant qualities leads to schizophrenia. Popular culture also contradicts the erroneous opinion that once a man's DNA is decoded, he can be read like a book, since popular culture emphasizes the important connection of the development of genetic information in social contexts. A film like Gattaca dismisses the widespread opinion that the gene is almighty-the significance of the right genetic fingerprint is called into question. The human being's genetic complex remains a construct and an abstract simulacrum if it does not coincide with a corporeal being existing in a social context.

Artists and designers are already disseminating design proposals in other media besides film and cartoons. Now it's high time to work in collaboration with scientists directly in the same medium of the life sciences and to put forth, alongside an industrially-formed genetic world, a purely aesthetically-motivated variant.