[-empyre-] the man as a prototype - the limits of open source

[Sonia Matos]

Yes Gabriel, this is a very pertinent point you raise here. I do agree, Simondon's 'abstract and concrete objects' might not allow us to fully explore the ethical questions that surround the DIYBio project. After all, innovations in synthetic biology can be used for the wrong purposes, here I  am thinking of viruses. 

However, what I find interesting in this shift of boundaries between is not only the new ways of 'making' biology and the implications for the future of the so called 'knowledge society' but also the implications for our ways of thinking about the 'prototype' as that which ties the old debate between 'synthetic' and 'natural' (and then again tying to your question concerning ethics). To a certain extent Simondon's work challenges the modernist conception of object, artifact, technologies as 'grand plans' with short foresight in relation to their actual uses, manipulations, destruction, re-fabrications, etc. (and here we include the 'natural'). It is in this process of constant re-design that knowledge shifts, encounters new subaltern meanings. 

Thinking of specifically about this point a combination between Simondon's philosophy and Bruno Latour's critique of modernist project might provided interesting links. Here I am referring to a short paper by Latour: 'A Cautious Prometheus? A Few Steps Toward a Philosophy of Design (with Special Attention to Peter Sloterdijk)' .

Here is short quote link to the full paper:

"The great importance of Sloterdijk’s philosophy (and I think the major interest of a designer’s way of looking at things) is that it offers another idiom. The idiom of matters of concern reclaims matter, matters and materiality and renders them into something that can and must be carefully redesigned. This might be far from the humanists’ limited view of what humans are, but it is every bit as removed from the post human dreams of cyborgs. What is clear is that the collective definition of what artificial life supports are supposed to be becomes the key site of politically minded investigation. Nothing much is left of the scenography of the modernist theory of action: no male hubris, no mastery, no appeal to the outside, no dream of expatriation in an outside space which would not require any life support of any sort, no nature, no grand gesture of radical departure —and yet still the necessity of redoing everything once again in a strange
 combination of conservation and innovation that is unprecedented in the short history of modernism" (p.11).  www.bruno-latour.fr/articles/article/112-DESIGN-CORNWALL.pdf 



--- On Tue, 3/16/10, Gabriel Menotti <gabriel.menotti at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Gabriel Menotti <gabriel.menotti at gmail.com>
Subject: [-empyre-] the man as a prototype - the limits of open source
To: "soft_skinned_space" <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Date: Tuesday, March 16, 2010, 5:08 PM

> After this warm-up and to finalize my brief intervention, for this week’s
> Empyre I propose the following discussion: how might synthetic biological
> concocts shed new light on the concept of the ‘prototype’ as a means for
> democratizing knowledge productions? (Sonia Matos)

I think diy bio is iconic as a practice because it not only seems to
increase the dynamics between different levels of (knowledge)
production – specialized and layman research –, but also between
subject and object. The way you put it, Sonia, I can't help
remembering Zaratustra famous remark that 'man is a bridge to the
Overman'. After all, diy bio does breach the concreteness of a being
that is not exactly (or entirely) technical - at least from an ethical
standpoint. In spite of this, is Simondon's approach enough to reason
about biological (if not living) organisms? Would diy bio allow such
reflexiveness that we start seeing ourselves as prototypes (i mean
seriously, not in an scatological transhumanist way)? Or we still have
to wait until the availability of a bioengineering home lab?


> one danger of do it yourself culture, is also the
> breakdown of actual cumbersome but humanly necessary moments of interaction. (Christopher Sullivan)

i share some of your anxieties towards open source. in some sense,
they risk being just a reorganization of priorities and levels of
authorizations - the role of the designer becoming a form of mere use
encompassed by a even more controled layer of design (let's say
protocolar?). nevertheless, i believe that diy models create
possibilities for meaningful interaction through the act of making -
and even what you call 'actual' interaction, with digital models
coupling with physical hardware, electronics and the possibilities of
fast-prototyping (which might mean involve materials as cheap as
paper).

best!
Menotti
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