Originally published in CIRCA, Art and Technology Supplement,Winter 1999, pp. S05-S07.
Ars Electronica became Ars Genetica. Paul O'Brien was there, negotiatingthe interface between biology, art, and society.
"Lifesciences" was the title of the festival Ars Electronica99 (partly sponsored by Novartis) in the Austrian city of Linz. Ars Electronica,consisting of a symposium, installations and prize-winning exhibits, representsan ongoing attempt to overcome the split identified decades ago by C.P.Snow between the "two cultures" (science and arts/humanities).The symposium and installations were focussed on developments in cloningand genetic engineering.
On the optimistic or technophile side, represented in the discussionsby scientists like Robert Lanza, Klaus Ammann and Zhangliang Chen, therewere the usual arguments regarding the elimination of world hunger anddisease (and perhaps even death itself) through genetic engineering. Onthe pessimistic or technophobe side, Jeremy Rifkin shamelessly played tothe gallery (and the local media) in a wide-ranging denunciation of developmentsin genetic engineering. The GM food industry, he predicted, will collapsein a matter of years due to the pressure of lawsuits and the failure ofinsurance companies to maintain cover. Rifkin�s argument endorsed the notionof the intrinsic value of life and condemned the application of engineeringprinciples and Baconian applied science to life itself. The result, hepredicted, would be that----with the implementation of the "terminatorgene"---no farmer would ever own a seed again and companies wouldend up owning the bluebrint of the human race. In a defence of the politicalstructure of decision-making in the era of Green politics, the sociologistBruno Latour argued for the right to resist the scientists� definitionof what the problem is, while R.V. Anuradha condemned developments in agriculturalcommercialisation, monoculturisation and homogeneity.
Speaking at the conference, Eduardo Kac described his art work "Genesis",which was presented at Ars Electronica and which involves the (interactive,Web-based) development of a real synthetic gene, using as the basis ofthe code a passage from the book of Genesis (Ch. 1, Vs. 26) asserting humanity�sGod-given dominion over nature (a text which, ironically, is often usedto indict an instrumental rationality which is basically atheistic in nature.).As well as Kac�s "Genesis", installations included �Multiple_Dwelling�,an impressive living exhibit based on the ��storage room�� for comatosebodies destined for organ transplants in the film �Coma�. Gene Genies gavean account of a shop which they had temporarily opened in California offeringgenetic modification, while Clones-R-Us did something similar for cloningon the Web. The tongue-in-cheek assumption, common to a number of exhibits/installations,is that we live in a �Gattaca�-type future where cloning and genetic engineeringare consumerist services like any other. (If you want to order a CindyCrawford or early Michael Jackson clone, visit http://www.d-b.net/dti.).I also succeeded getting my genetic fingerprint from a saliva swab recordedon an ID card, which will no doubt come in handy at border crossings inthe future.
Again on the issue of the interface between life and art, the very accomplishedAnomalocaris is an interactive work which attempts to resurrect an animalthat supposedly lived during the Cambrian Age, using not just a visualdisplay but also haptic sensation through a force-feedback device. Accordingto the accompanying text, �If the participant pushes the head of the virtual[anomalocaris] it becomes angry and struggles.� (Well, maybe--�I hadn�trealised that was what it was doing.)
Most of the art work citing genetic developments does not employ themin any central way in the work itself, and thus remains involved in thetwo cultures ��split��. The significant exception is the work of Kac, whichis conceptually and technically worked-out. Interactive installations commentingon biotech developments included �Hamster�, a study of the interface betweenanimal and mechnical energy (since it escaped picketing by the HamsterLiberation Front, it was evidently deemed fairly harmless). There was alsothe truly horrific �Dispersion� by Eric Paulus, which, tongue-in -cheek(I hope) claims to be the first vending machine to automate the sale ofbiological pathogens--�anthrax, smallpox, typhus, plague, etc. As the informationsheet cheerfully recounts, �A video display shows eye-catching scenes ofbiological agent production , spawning, use, and consequences. These imagesare interspersed with �fun disease� facts such as amount required to kill1.,000 people, expected time to live after first contact, testimonials,etc.� Also in macabre mode, an exhibition of ��plasticated�� bodies byGunther von Hagens spanned the intersection between art and medicine.
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The competition part of the festival (the Prix Ars Electronica, sponsoredby Siemens and others) enjoyed a record number of 2,119 entries from 60countries this year. For the first time it included a section, won by RaimundSchumacher and Juergen Oman, called �Cybergeneration�. This was open toyoung people under 19 in Austria, a hitherto enlightened society--�despitethe incursions of the Orwellianly -entitled Freedom Party--�where a long-standingdedication to both wealth-making and wealth-distribution has ensured goodeducational access to new technology.
Another winner of the Golden Nica award (in the �.net� section) wasLinus Torvalds of Finland for the open-source operating system �Linux�.(Controversy: can a source code be an art work?). Awards of distinctionin the .net category included one to Jean-Marc Philippe of France for hismodest �KEO� project, wherein anyone interested can send a message to beburned on a special CD-ROM and sent put into orbit in a satellite, whichwill return to earth in 50,000 years. (If you want to tell your mutantdescendants what went wrong, now�s your chance at http://www.keo.org.).
In the field of interactive art, Lynn Hershman of the US won the awardfor her �Difference Engine [No.] 3� , an electronic meditation on questionsof surveillance. Through a digital camera, you can install a picture ofyourself in a kind of cybernetic ��purgatory�� (http://www.construct.net/de3).Luc Courchesne received a distinction in this category for his technically-impressive �Landscape One�, a spatial installation whereby the visitorstands in the middle of a virtual park. This is represented on a 360-degreeprojection surface, and the participant can interact with virtual visitorsincluding a dog for which one can throw a virtual stick. (I did--�tirelessly.).
Other installations included �Easel�, Daniel Rozin�s intriguing interactivedevice for ��painting�� on a canvas; �Haze Express� by Christa Sommererand Laurent Mignonneau, based on the idea of a virtual train window thatresponds to the visitor�s hand; and �Sound Systems�, a complex piece forrobot musicians by Yamaguchi, Higashiizumi and Tagawa. Again in eschatologicalmode, the Golden Nica award for visual effects went for special effectsdepicting the after-life in the film What Dreams May Come, while the prizefor computer animation went to Chris Wedge, Blue Skies Studios (USA) forthe 7-minute animation �Bunny�, the story of an elderly rabbit. who diesand goes to heaven. (One of the distinctions in this category went to theComputer Film Company, UK, for the Guinness ad �Surfer� where white horsesemerge from the sea).) The Digital Musics Golden Nica award went to RichardJames (Aphex Twin) and Chris Cunningham, UK, for the music video �Cometo Daddy�. Also present at the Festival were the very amusing activistgroup RTMark, responsible for the notorious switching of the sound-systemsof Action-man and Barbie dolls in the US in the early 90s. Etoy were thereas well, showing a video of the infiltration by one of their shaven-headed,orange-jacketted members of a lottery show on Swiss national TV. The Etoy-clonerepeated desperately that he was in �the wrong medium� and was lookingfor the Internet. He was eventually ��shown the way to the Internet�� bya befuddled announcer. Attempts by police to sort out the situation cameto little, since Etoy all looked the same and had in any case switchedtheir passports. Outfits like RTtmark and Etoy mimic the corporate structurein an attempt--�with roots in Dada--�to subvert seriousness in the cyberneticage: a counteraction to the threatened control of life itself by the biotechindustry.
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If techno-anarchism flourished at one end of the scale, some of theissues raised under the rubric of the life-sciences seemed to raise thespectre of biological domination. The type of inter-species comminglingto which genetic engineering seems to be tending---for example, human-animalin the realm of xeno-transplantation---breaks deep human taboos. (As wasillustrated by the BSE debacle, ��instinctive�� taboos on things like cannibalism,for example, sometimes turn out to have a sound basis.).
From a viewpoint---like mine---which is sceptical of genetic engineering,the spectre of commercialisation and even monopolisation haunts this area,based on a reductive and instrumental view of the role of science. Historically,this interventionist approach has had seriously adverse consequences forhealth and the environment (DDT, CFCs, thalidomide, Agent Orange, nuclearenergy, PCBs, etc.) One of the results of the science/humanities splitis that a historical perspective is not a strong point among many scientists.Past scientific paradigms have been at best incomplete and at worst false,and the scientific establishment has historically displayed an entrenchedresistance to discoveries that we now take for granted (for example electriclight, manned flight, space travel).
Many key technological advances have been made outside of the scientificestablishment, and often incurred the derision of the latter. As RichardMilton writes in Forbidden Science:, �Anyone who switches on the electriclight, turns on the television, makes a phone call, watches a film, playsa record, takes a photograph, uses a personal computer, drives a car ortravels by aeroplane has the lone eccentric to thank, not institutionalscience.�1 Philosophers have generally failed to show what it is aboutscience---apart from its sociological clout and the useful inventions whichit has failed to suppress---that gives it a privileged access to truthor the real.
The inability or lack of desire of today�s scientific establishmentto engage in a critique of its own (materialistic, mechanistic, reductive,instrumental) presuppositions recalls in some ways the blind adherenceof the medieval Church to entrenched Aristotelian views of the universe.In some ways the scientific establishment has itself become a religion,with much of the obscurantism of religious fundamentalism and some morebesides. There is the indignant rejection of socio-economic explanationsfor its activities. There are the unchallengeable dogmas, and the blindspots and no-go areas (for example the influence of Darwin on Nazi thoughtand practice). There is the classic ideological feat of being able to ignoreobvious contradictions---for example the anti-materialistic tendenciesin physics (viz. the writings of Paul Davies) versus the materialisticin biology (viz. Richard Dawkins).
The oft-cited ignorance on the part of "humanist" criticsof the minutiae of genetic engineering is at least paralleled by an ignoranceon the part of many scientists of some basic historical, sociological,economic and philosophical issues. ( On the way out of one of the sessions,I overheard a---very young---scientist complain that conferences shouldconsist of people announcing their discoveries, not discussing all theseirrelevant topics. That seemed to sum up quite a lot.) In the light ofthe foregoing, therefore, this year�s Ars Electronica was a refreshinglyopen attempt to deal head-on with some of the science/society issues whichare often ignored through the mutual hostility of the ��two cultures��.
If this year�s event was an attempt (�where software is, there wetwareshall be�) to piggy-back on the widespread acceptance of computer art inorder to integrate controversial developments in biology into art---andtherefore the wider culture---the attempt was only partially successful,judging by audience reaction at least. Going by the intense and wide-rangingdebate in the conference part of the festival , the science/humanitiessplit---at least in regard to the life-sciences---is as wide as ever--,if not wider. The conference was an unusually diverse and welcome forumfor a discussion of the interface between biology, art, and society.
1 - Richard Milton, Forbidden Science: Exposing the Secrets of SuppressedResearch (London: Fourth Estate, 1994), p. 92.
Paul O'Brien lectures at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin.
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