XII. World Congress of Bioethics “Bioethics in a Globalized World: Science, Society and the Individual,“ organized by the International Association of Bioethics (IAB), hosted by The National Bioethics Commission of Mexico, Mexico City, June 25–28, 2014.
The full program of the XII. World Congress of Bioethics will consist of 26 invited lectures, 50 symposium presentations, 280 oral presentations, and 66 poster presentations. Symposium: From Bioethics to Bioart: The Question About the Limits (Panels I and II) Chair: Prof. Dr. María Antonia González Valerio (National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico) and PD Dr. Ingeborg Reichle (Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany). Date and Time: Thursday 26, June 2014, 12.15–13.45 (Panel I) Room 8, 18.30–20.00 (Panel II) Room 7, Venue: Hotel Hilton Reforma, Av. Juarez #70, Colonia Centro, Mexico City, Distrito Federal, 06010, Mexico. Concept: >From a philosophical point of view a limit is that which enables something to exist, for an entity can only exist — and develop and evolve — within certain boundaries. The limits, then, are an ontological matter that allows us to think in terms of shapes and figures, morphologies, transformations, and even names. Life is something that comes into being only in the presence of certain limits or constraints, regardless of their plasticity and ever changing capacity. The fragility and the power of life lie within these limits, boundaries, and frontiers. However, it is not only a question of biological limits: For example, within which framework is life biologically possible? It is also a question about conceptual limits, models of knowing, epistemological boundaries, and so on. Life is also a concept, a concept that has changed dramatically due to the arrival of biotechnology within the frame of technoscience. To reflect on these limits, from biology to philosophy and art (such as bioart), seeks first and foremost to propose arguments about what life is within the flexibility of the limits that we are experiencing nowadays in the realm of technoscience. In these terms, not only science but also art has an important role, because historically the latter has been a human activity that constantly configures and refigures the limits of the sensible world. In these two panels we intend to organize a debate from the viewpoint of various disciplines about life and its limits in the crossovers between bio arts, ethics, sciences, and philosophies. Speakers: • Brandon Ballangée (New York, United States) • Deborah Dorotinsky (Mexico City, Mexico) • María Antonia González Valerio (Mexico City, Mexico) • Nicole C. Karafyllis (Braunschweig, Germany) • Sebastián Lomelí (Mexico City, Mexico) • Rosaura Martínez (Mexico City, Mexico) • Ingeborg Reichle (Berlin, Germany) Program: (Panel I), Room 8 Thursday 26, June 2014, 12.15–13.45 (12.15–12.20) Introduction, María Antonia González Valerio (National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico) and Ingeborg Reichle (Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany) (12.20–12.40) Portraiture, Limits, Returns, Deborah Dorotinsky (National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico) (12.40–13.00) The Art, Science, and Ecological Ethics of Deformed Amphibians: A Practitioner‘s Perspective, Brandon Ballengée (School of Visual Arts, New York, NY, USA and McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada) (13.00–13.20) Debating Non-normative Approaches in BioArt Practices against the Prospect of a Bioscience-based Economy, Ingeborg Reichle (Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany) (13.20–13.40) Liminal Portraits: The Embodiment of Other Ways of Living, Sebastián Lomelí (National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico) (13.40–13.45) Closing Remarks (panel II), Room 7 Thursday 26, June 2014, 18.30–20.00 (18.30–18.35) Introduction, María Antonia González Valerio (National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico) and Ingeborg Reichle (Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany) (18.35–19.00) The Freudian Psychic Apparatus: A Lifedeath Bioartifact, Rosaura Martínez (National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico) (19.00–19.25) Bioethics or Ethics of Biotechnology? Reflecting the Limits of Evaluating Biofacts from an Ethics Perspective, Nicole C. Karafyllis (TU Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany) (19.25–19.50) Teleology, Functionality, and Instrumentality in Biology: An Approach from the Artifacts and Aesthetic Ontology, María Antonia González Valerio (National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico) (19.50–20.00) Closing Remarks Abstracts: The Art, Science, and Ecological Ethics of Deformed Amphibians: A Practitioner‘s Perspective, Brandon Ballengée (School of Visual Arts, New York, NY, USA and McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada) Hind limb deformities (sometimes called “malformations”) in natural populations of amphibians have been an important environmental issue for several decades. The most commonly reported abnormalities in North America, Europe, and Australia are those featuring missing, partial, or truncated hind limbs, yet specific causes for this phenomenon have remained unclear. Only recently have aquatic predators such as dragonfly nymphs (Odonata) and some fishes have been linked to tadpole injuries resulting in these types of limb abnormalities. Here I present evidence from both field and laboratory studies demonstrating that selective predation by Odonate nymphs may play a significant role in inducing limb deformities in natural populations of anuran amphibians. Transdisciplinary art and participatory science programs were utilized during these studies to engage public volunteers (citizen scientists). Participants achieved increased awareness of amphibian conservation issues through direct participation in primary scientific studies. Art inspired from these research experiences has been exhibited internationally with the intention of furthering a message of amphibian conservation. An ecological ethical framework (derived from the ideas of John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Richard Louv, and others) underlies these combined art, science, and environmental practices, which will be discussed. CV: Brandon Ballengée is an artist, biologist, and conservationist; he creates transdisciplinary artworks inspired from his ecological field and laboratory research. Ballengée’s art has been exhibited internationally, and in the summer of 2013 the first career survey of his work debuted at the Château de Charamarande in Essonne (France), and recently travelled to the Museum Het Domein in Sittard (Netherlands) in 2014. Recent solo exhibitions have been the Alden B. Dowe Museum of Art and Science (Midland; USA: 2014); Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education (Philadelphia, USA: 2013), Ronald Feldman Fine Arts (New York City, USA: 2012); Longue Vue House and Gardens (New Orleans, USA; 2011); PAV, Centro d'Arte Contemporanea (Turin, Italy: 2010); Nowhere Gallery (Milan, Italy: 2009); Yorkshire Sculpture Park (Wakefield, England: 2008); Central Park’s Arsenal Gallery (New York City, USA: 2007); Peabody Museum of Natural History (Yale University, New Haven, USA: 2007); and others. His works have been included in several international biennials and festivals including: Documenta 13 (Germany: 2012); Prospect 2 New Orleans (USA: 2011); Transmediale 11 (Germany: 2010); 3rd Moscow Biennale (Russia: 2009); Biennale for Electronic Arts Perth (Australia: 2007); Venice Biennale (Italy: 2005); Geumgang Nature Art Biennale (South Korea: 2004); and others. In 2011 he was awarded a conservation leadership fellowship from the National Audubon Society’s TogetherGreen Program (USA). He is currently a professor at the School of Visual Art in New York, NY, and a Visiting Scientist at McGill University in Montréal, Quebec. Portraiture, Limits, Returns, Deborah Dorotinsky (Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico) Historically, one of portraiture’s central tasks has been the representation of the alleged identity of the model. Within nineteenth-century anthropological practices, and even more so after the invention of photography (1839), the anthropometric and ethnographic portrait not only became “research data” but also served to establish the moral, social, and biological worth of ethnic populations. Identification photography thus served a purpose in both defining types of subjects, and literally subjecting populations to different power/knowledge regimes. The case study I will approach here is a photographic series, Genetic self-portrait created by South African artist Gary Schneider between 1997 and 1998. In this series, Schneider presents us with close-ups of his body made with different visualization techniques used in laboratories, but printed using antique photographic techniques. It would seem that the artist abandons the tradition of portraiture as conceived in art historical terms by presenting us with microscopic parts of his own body: a sperm, a hair follicle, a mitochondrion, intestinal flora – all of them printed in large format and installed in New York’s Center for Creative Photography. This paper will explore how portraiture and self-portraits operate as devices that explore the limits of representation of subjects by making use of historical photographic techniques. I am particularly interested in pinpointing boundaries in self-portraiture figuration processes as well as the return to or revival of historic or antique photographic techniques as strategies for making scientific images “artistic” while at the same time contesting the ethical scope of identification images. Since the nineteenth century, identification photographs have played an instrumental role in law enforcement, medicine, and schooling. They served to establish identifiable images of normality and deviation, health and illness, civility, and barbarity. They were part of eugenic approaches and biotypologies. In using historical processes to print laboratory images, does Schneider evade the negative ethical connotations ascribed to identification photographs? Does he make these issues more salient and thus puts forward a critique of these images, which according to John Tagg bear “the burden of representation”? How do these historic photographic printing techniques present us with a paradox? What are the new premises that images like Schneider’s allow us to imagine for the problematic representation of human diversity? These are some of the questions this paper will attempt to address. CV: Deborah Dorotinsky is an anthropologist, who turned to art history. She is chair of the Graduate Art History program at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) since 2011, and full time researcher at Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas in UNAM since 2004. She holds an MA and PhD in art history from UNAM and a BA in cultural anthropology from UC Berkeley. Her research centers on issues involving racism and gender constructions. She has dealt with the photographic representation of indigenous peoples of Mexico and the construction of gender in Mexican visual culture between 1900 and 1940. She has published extensively on the history of Mexican Photography in the journals Luna Córnea and Alquimia. Her book, Viaje de sombras. Fotografías del Desierto de la Soledad y los indios lacandones en los años cuarenta, 2013, (Voyage of shadows. Photographs of the Desierto de la Soledad and the Lacandon Indians in the 1940s) traces the visual and conceptual genealogy of the photographic representation of both the Lacandon rainforest and its inhabitants, the Lacandon Indians, as seen since the nineteenth century to the 1940s to unravel how this natural area and its inhabitants were construed as the zero degree of civilization in Mexican territories. She is a member of the Arte+Ciencia research group and has participated in the art collective BIOS Ex machinA and its first bioart exhibition. Sin origen/Sin semilla in 2012. She is a partner in the Getty Foundation project, ”Unfolding Art Histories in Latin America, the long 19th century,” a joint venture with Universidad Estadoal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Universidad Nacional San Martín in Argentina, and UNAM in Mexico. Teleology, Functionality, and Instrumentality in Biology: An Approach from the Artifacts and Aesthetic Ontology , María Antonia González Valerio (Faculty of Philosophy and Literature, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico) Epistemological models in contemporary biology tend to criticize teleological explanations, since, in general, it is understood that teleology belongs to a worldview where the cosmos has a purpose. Taking the physics paradigms as granted, where explanations through necessary and sufficient conditions are the basis, biology discusses the pertinence of functionality as a non-teleological explanation model – or at least allegedly. It is said, then, that functionality is different from teleology, and therefore many explanations in biology are built through functions and functionality, from genetics to ecology. Nevertheless, it is necessary to at least distinguish between functionality in ontological terms, and in operational terms. If it is understood in ontological terms, and then functionality is used to explain the existence of something, the idea of purpose usually appears. Teleology and ontological functionality have to deal with the idea of purpose, whether it is an immanent or transcendent one. My contention here is that rethinking teleology, functionality, and instrumentality from the artifacts, especially the artwork, provides us with different arguments to understand the idea of purpose and functionality. Purpose can be thought of without the notion of an ending and without chronological organizations; it can be understood from the perspective of limits, posited as that ontological condition from whence something comes to be. Art is a producer of these limits. But life is also a producer. Art and life can only exist within these limits, which are flexible and in a state of constant change. These limits are also purposiveness, and within them life and dead come to be. If functionality is an important model to understand biological processes, it is also because death, non-being, ceasing to be, are determinants of life. If physics can operate with epistemological models where functionality and purposiveness are out of the frame, it is because its limits do not include death and conclusion of a life term. CV: María Antonia González Valerio is a philosopher working in the fields of aesthetics and ontology, with a focus on biotechnologies and the arts. She is full professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She is the author of two books: Un tratado de ficción. Ontología de la mimesis (Herder, 2010) and El arte develado (Herder, 2005). She is co-editor of five books, the most recent is: Pròs Bíon: Reflexiones naturales desde el arte, la ciencia y la filosofía (UNAM, 2013). She is the head of the interdisciplinary research group Art+Science, based at the UNAM, and the coordinator of the arts collective BIOS Ex machinA (workshop for the fabrication of the human and the non-human). In 2012 she curated the bioart exhibition Sin origen/Sin semilla (Without origin/Seedless) at the Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Artes (MUCA) Campus Roma and Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC). Bioethics or Ethics of Biotechnology? Reflecting the Limits of Evaluating Biofacts from an Ethics Perspective, Nicole C. Karafyllis (TU Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany) The presentation will emphasize the normative clashes arising at the intersection of application of two forms of applied ethics: (a) bioethics, and (b) ethics of technology. As will be outlined, both evaluative forms and areas of applied ethics rely on different normative fundaments with regard to entities and modes of praxis. As a consequence, many products of transgenic Bioart remain in a no-man’s-land of moral judgment. Whereas the demand for an “ethics of art” has already been announced by ethicists, I will argue for an “ethics of biotechnology,” helping to overcome the limits of the above-mentioned forms of applied ethics (a) and (b). The classic realms of artifacts are technology and the arts, challenged in recent decades by the idea of biofacts: living artifacts. When we look at biotechnologically made entities, we are not inspired to ask “What are they?” but rather “What are they good for?” Artifacts in technology have to function according to a specific purpose. “Function” and “purpose” are seen differently in the arts, which, per a common definition, do not serve utility. There, the mediality of the artifact shows when the artefact irritates. This special form of drama that the arts have a right to establish will be challenged by classical bioethical approaches. Therefore, we might look at the alternative approach of ethics of technology, as both technology and the arts aim to embody emancipative potential and deal with irritations. CV: Nicole N. Karafyllis is a trained philosopher and biologist, and since 2010 chair of the Department of Philosophy at the Technische Universität Braunschweig (Germany). 2008–2010 she held a full professorship in philosophy at the United Arab Emirates University in Abu Dhabi (UAE), followed by a visiting professorship in Cultural Philosophy of Science 2007 at the University of Vienna (Austria). Her habilitation thesis in 2006 dealt with the phenomenology of growth. Karafyllis’s main areas of research are: philosophy of science and technology, biotechnologies and the arts, philosophy of culture and intercultural exchange. Selected publications: N.C. Karafyllis: Biologisch, Natürlich, Nachhaltig. Philosophische Aspekte des Naturzugangs im 21. Jahrhundert. Tübingen: Francke 2001 (in German). N.C. Karafyllis and G. Ulshöfer (eds.): Sexualized Brains. Scientific Modeling of Emotional Intelligence from a Cultural Perspective. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 2008; Putzen als Passion. Berlin: Kadmos 2013. Liminal Portraits: The Embodiment of Other Ways of Living Sebastián Lomelí (National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico) Through the concept of “liminal portraits” I analyze the political and existential possibilities of the work of two artists: Félix González-Torres and Marta de Menezes. Their artworks ask the spectators to recognize themselves in images, which are hardly related to them at all, but in so doing they are questioned in two specific directions. First, the pieces ask about the limits of personal identity and factical existence. Second, the embodiment of those images as (own) possible portraits reveals political programs concerning the definition of the body, health, and death. CV: Sebastián Lomelí Bravo is a member of the research group Arte+Ciencia and of the art collective BIOS Ex machinA. He is currently a PhD student at the UNAM (Mexico), and his doctoral work explores the idea of production in contemporary and high-tech art practices. His general research interests are ontology and aesthetics. He has coordinated two volumes on the philosophy of Maria Zambrano. The Freudian Psychic Apparatus: A Lifedeath Bioartifact, Rosaura Martínez (School of Philosophy, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico) The Freudian psychic apparatus is a bioartifact, that is, a machine that mediates between life as tension and death as the complete discharge of it. This apparatus sets life in motion in a hyperbolic fashion, but as a detour towards death. For Freud, life in historical and evolutionary terms is a burden that has to be lived off. The paradoxical and speculative relation between Eros and Thanatos is seen as the origin of the psyche as a complex mechanism of negotiation between life and death. Thus, the psyche as an apparatus is designed in order to discharge tension (life), but at the same time it also obeys another tendency, which Freud calls the constancy principle. This principle creates a reserve of energy in the form of memory that resists a shortcut, an immediate or suicidal death. Memory is that which saves a deferred discharge and the way through which upcoming tensions discharge. This sort of archive constitutes the protection against death. In this sense, the death drive is, on one hand, that which enlivens the need to create a reserve and, on the other and at the same time, that which is directed at destroying any archive. This means that the channels for tension release can be erotic and life affirmative. The Freudian psychic apparatus turns out to be a lifedeath apparatus or an apparatus of the “good livingdying.” CV: Rosaura Martínez is a trained philosopher with a focus on Freudian psychoanalysis. She is full time associate professor of philosophy at the School of Philosophy, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and head of the research project “Philosophers after Freud” (UNAM, 2013–2016) as well as research collaborator of the project “Manipulation of living organisms. Art limits in the intertwining of sciences and technologies” (UNAM, 2011–2014). In 2012 she was a member of the artist collective BIOS Ex machinA Art exhibition Sin origen/Sin semilla at the MUCA ROMA museum, November 2012. She received her PhD in philosophy from UNAM with the dissertation Freudian Psychoanalysis: A Reading from Derrida’s Notion of Writing and an MA in philosophy from The New School University in New York City with the dissertation: The Fragmented Subject of Psychoanalysis, supervised by Richard Bernstein. Selected publications: R. Martínez: Freud y Derrida: escritura y psique (Freud and Derrida: Writing and Psyche), SIGLO XXI, 2013. “The Alterability of the Memory Trace”. The Psychoanalytic Review (The Official Journal of the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis), vol. 98, no. 4. August, 2011, pp. 531–555. “Freud y Derrida: Escritura en el aparato psíquico”. Diánoia. Revista del Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas, UNAM y FCE, vol. 58, no. 68. May, 2012, pp. 65–79. Debating Non-normative Approaches in BioArt Practices against the Prospect of a Bioscience-based Economy, Ingeborg Reichle (Humboldt-University, Berlin, Germany) In the last twenty years the incorporation of biological material, like cells, bacteria, tissue cultures, and scientific technologies, into the arts went hand in hand with debates about the aesthetic value and ethical and ontological consequences of introducing cutting edge science into the arts. With the emergence of BioArt, biotechnology became part of the art world, raising questions about the aesthetic and ethical status of manipulating living organisms in the age of technoscience. The adoption of bioscience techniques and living materials by the arts has opened up new avenues of artistic expression, and by bringing genetic engineering closer to the public through art has provoked wider reflection about the ethics of turning biology into technology. In recent years many bioartists have challenged traditional ethics through the non-normative approaches exhibited in their art, and this has thrown open the issues involved for public debate. In my presentation I shall address the issue of whether we need to formulate normative ethical guidelines for BioArt, because BioArt appears to be gaining a voice within the public debate about the transformation of our current economy into a bioscience-based economy — a development which will affect many aspects of our lives in a major way. CV: Ingeborg Reichle is an art historian and cultural theorist writing on contemporary art, new technologies, and new media, with a focus on biotechnology and artificial life. 2005–2011 she held a research position at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Berlin. In 2004 she received her Ph.D. from the Humboldt University Berlin with her dissertation Art in the Age of Technoscience: Genetic Engineering, Robotics, and Artificial Life in Contemporary Art, published 2005 in German and 2009 in English, both with Springer publishers,Vienna/New York. She completed her habilitation thesis in 2013 titled Bilderwissen – Wissensbilder. Zur Gegenwart der Epistemologie der Bilder at the Humboldt University Berlin. In 2010 she curated the bioart exhibition Jenseits des Menschen – Beyond Humans at the Berlin Medical History Museum of the Charité Hospital. Since 2000 she has been a guest lecturer at various international institutions including the School of Visual Arts, New York; the Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boston; the Life-Science Lab, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg; Timbusu College National University of Singapore; SymbioticA at the School of Anatomy, Physiology and Human Biology, University of Western Australia; School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong; Lomonosov Moscow State University.
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