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

[Simon Biggs]

It’s important to remember that synthetic biology is GM technology mark 2. I
was at a recent committee meeting where a UK government official was urging
us to employ the jargon of synthetic biology so that the memories of the GM
debate can be avoided and the government and industry get there way the
second time around. This is still about Monsanto and the ownership of
biological organisms and we should keep that at the front of our minds. Do
we want to see the entire planet’s food production forced into an industrial
model of agriculture or do we want the means of production remain in control
of local communities? I accept this is not a black and white issue but I
know where I stand on this.

Best

Simon


Simon Biggs

s.biggs at eca.ac.uk  simon at littlepig.org.uk  Skype: simonbiggsuk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk/
Research Professor  edinburgh college of art  http://www.eca.ac.uk/
Creative Interdisciplinary Research into CoLlaborative Environments
http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/
Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice
http://www.elmcip.net/



From: Sonia Matos <sonia_cabralmatos at yahoo.com>
Reply-To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:18:29 -0700 (PDT)
To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] the man as a prototype - the limits of open source

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
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au </mc/compose?to=empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre



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