[-empyre-] Mediated Matters

[Adam Nocek]

Oron wrote:

What is interesting in our context, which is something that I would like to
explore and unpack in the next few days, is that as unsuccessful as this
field is in delivering its medical promises, it holds a great symbolic and
seductive power as to our fantasies of controlling and designing life forms
and forms of life.


Oron, I wonder if you could say more about this seductive power. This also
speaks to Johannes' question, I believe, about the promises of bioart. One
of the daring things that Rob Mitchell (see last September's discussion)
proposes in his wonderful book _Bioart and the Vitality of Media_ is that
bioart can function as a "medium for transformation" that produces new
affective spaces. My worry is that affect itself is not outside of the
"pervasive capitalism" Johannes mentions. While I can already hear critics
accuse me of not understanding Deleuze and Guattari's "affect," I do think
that there is a reason why Deleuze is worried, even cynical, in the
"Postscript on the Societies of Control." His concern is that the "mutation
in capital" no longer gives him a way to think the "outside."  This may
sound cynical, but I wonder what promise(s) bioart still holds. And how do
we frame-- or reframe-- those promises?

Any thoughts?


On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 7:49 AM, Oron Catts <oron.catts at uwa.edu.au> wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Dear all - it is good to be here again and thanks Adam for inviting me
> back.
> Unfortunately I didn't follow all of the conversation last week, as I was
> in China, experiencing first hand some of the extremes of urban spatial
> organisation... seeing the out of control urbanisation (read:  forests of
> high rising apartment blocks)  in what was until very recently rural
> farming areas.  One story I have heard about this (true or not) that might
> link what I want to talk about (designing life) and the problem of forcing
> "urban design solutions" (which I'm less interested in) is that of the lone
> Chinese framer forced out of his land and traditional way of living into
> one of these apartments. To the dismay of his neighbours he moved in with
> his water buffalo; been both his only companion and property that was only
> logical for framer to bring the buffalo along.  The story ends with the
> authorities called in to remove the "nuisance". Hint- it was not the
> apartment block...
> Anyway, one of the main reasons from my trip to China was to continue my
> research towards an exhibition I'm staging next year, to commemorate the
> 20th anniversary of the first public appearance of (what is for me, at
> least) one of the most striking example of designed life-  the mouse with
> the human ear on its back.  This example of the plasticity of bodies and
> human abilities to sculpt with living material was what lad me on the path
> I'm still following. The Ear mouse was also the framing "poster boy" of the
> field now known as regenerative medicine. What is interesting in our
> context, which is something that I would like to explore and unpack in the
> next few days, is that as unsuccessful as this field is in delivering its
> medical promises, it holds a great symbolic and seductive power as to our
> fantasies of controlling and designing life forms and forms of life.
> In the last couple of years we have seen how this mode of thinking and the
> actual technology of regenerative biology are entering the mainstream
> discourse of consumer products.  In the next posts I will give some
> concrete examples, but in the meantime it will be interesting  as to what
> imaginaries will be conjured...
>
> Soon
> Oron
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au [mailto:
> empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Adam Nocek
> Sent: Tuesday, 16 September 2014 12:12 PM
> To: soft_skinned_space
> Subject: [-empyre-] Mediated Matters
>
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
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