Re: [-empyre-] Mediated matters and design abjections
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Hi all, I just wanted to jump in here and encourage you all to continue discussing. I got the green light from Renate since the new month at -empyre- won't begin until Sunday. There are a couple things that strike me here about the discussion over Datapolitik. Davide writes that Datapolitik refers to the transformation of humans from identity-bearing subjects to data-emitting subjects. There is datapolitik because we acknowledge ourselves as informational subjects whether we like to admit to it or not. Indeed, most of our daily activities are data-generative I can’t help but think of Deleuze’s “Postscript on Control Societies” here. In this short text he notes that we no longer live (and this is in 1990) in a society in which there are individuals, but one in which there are _dividuals_. If I may say so, I think Davide nicely fills out what Deleuze may have been getting at, though he never really analyzes in his brief essay. I do wonder, though, why biopolitics and biopower don’t concern you, Davide. You seem to bring together biopolitics and human subjectivity – you write: “Hence my lack of pursuing (also) of questions about biopolitics and subjectivity”— but I’m not sure that this captures how biopolitics operates in the 21st century. How are you thinking about biopolitics in this instance? And aren’t the practices of bioinformatics and biotechnology (that we talked about last week) clear instances of (neoliberal) biopolitics at work? They also seem to exemplify the Datapolitik you describe. How does this work out for you? And might this help sort out Johannes’ question re: the politics in Data-politik? I know this is spilling over into October, but I invite Davide, as well as the –empyre- community, to jump into this discussion! Thanks, Adam On Thu, Oct 2, 2014 at 9:01 AM, Johannes Birringer johannes.birrin...@brunel.ac.uk wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- thanks for your very interesting reply, Davide, to some of the comments. And your reply, if we had time here, would raise further questions, naturally, but I am hesitant to ask them as I feel that somehow the monthly debate has not involved very many discussants on our list. and it worries me not knowing whether anyone is reading the conversations or wanting to participate or wanting us to stop? I don’t think (at least for me) that the transmissional model of cause and effect of influence (which is also the model of coercion) is sufficient for our day and age (maybe it was never enough). Hence my lack of pursuing (also) of questions about biopolitics and subjectivity - which aren’t uninteresting questions to raise and follow through; they’re issues that I don’t feel equipped to deal with well enough - or rather, I should say, that the issue of control always already has a moral answer built into it; namely, the one who controls is the one (or it) that simultaneously exploits But once we’ve established this moral/ethical trajectory – let’s call it critical thought’s a priori - what can we say about the structures of association in our contemporary condition? .. The disregarding of interest seems like a unique dynamic of datapolitik that distinguishes it . [Davide] Your (aesthetic?) belief in the healthy disinterest of datapolitik (how can disinterested algorithms have or form a politics or have strategies if we associate the latter with Politik?) is peculiar as you did, earlier, speak of a transmission model, and you called it contagion. But surely contagious spreads and swarming affects are opportunistic, no? they are Machiavellian? at least as far as i understand the biomedical metaphor or epidemiological process and your zombie allegory -- viral algorithms spread, contaminate, and affect influence through contagion -- how then do the immune systems respond and how to political tactics and strategies become re-thinkable and rethought in such an algorithmic culture of associationn? You argue that data have/imply no politics, but call that a data-politik? Are you being ironic? regards Johannes Birringer ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
Re: [-empyre-] Mediated Matters and design abjections
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Hi all, Thanks for forcing me to clarify, Johannes. I mentioned last week's discussion for two reasons, I suppose. On the one hand, I wanted to call attention to the fact that eco-technologies (which include the products of biotech, synthetic biology, biodesign, etc.) are often marshaled to support the neoliberalized ideal of an eco-city with its healthy metabolism, and so on. This was mentioned last week, I believe. In other words, the neoliberalization of urban design and biodesign are deeply entangled. The other reason for mentioning last week's discussion is more abstract. That is, I'm very intrigued by the notion of the urban that Ross proposed: namely, that it is a spatial-political order predicated on limitless expansion. I imagine that Ross is drawing on Brenner and Lefebvre here (although please correct me if I'm wrong, Ross). What strikes me, though, is that just as the urban is a spatial-political order that constitutes the world under neoliberal power, life is also becoming-- and in very particular ways--something that is predicated on the limitless expansion of its territory. And the point is: garage biology does not easily escape this expansion. Genetic tinkering (Oron, please correct me if I'm wrong here) never happens in isolation -- either in the wet lab or in the garage. Biomaterials and information are sent through the mail (think of Steve Kutz), exchanged online, found on data bases, etc. In short, bio information, materials, and parts circulate in a global exchange that is profitable -- from next-generation biofuels and organ regeneration to 3D printing organic chairs, etc., etc. One of the implications of this is that there is an unprecedented spatial-political expansion to life, to its materials, and to its limitless applications--and there are also gross inequalities that this expansion produces. In any case, what my previous post was trying to suggest, I suppose, is that urban design and biodesign may share this dream of territorial expansion. And my call for deep time… well, that was merely a plea to think about life as somehow existing simultaneously within the register of neoliberal expansion and within the register of the geologic time of the planet… to the extent that this is at all possible… Hope this clarifies. Thoughts?? Best, Adam On Tue, Sep 23, 2014 at 11:58 AM, Johannes Birringer johannes.birrin...@brunel.ac.uk wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- dear all realizing the discussion is invited to move on (by Adam's post today), I still hope Oron will follow up his initial postings and perhaps expand on the notions of regenerative biology and designing life that he brought here. Am not sure how they relate to deep time, as Adam suggests, and I am also not convinced that we can draw easy parallels between the first and second weeks' subject matters. What's intriguing to me is how much the conversation is an elaboration of last week's developing discussion on urbanization [Adam] Could you refine how you see 'urban data politics' related to the modes and modalizations of life, as Manchev may imply that side of biology/biotechnology -- introduced by Oron or projected by the quasi-critical designs of bioartists who investigate growing cultures or tinkering with cells, at the genetic level -- when critiquing the politics of plasticity. For those who were interested in my reference to Boyan Manchev's writings but could not track the german text, i found an english translation from a Slovene translation (Odpor plesa, Maska 25 [2010], pp. 9-19), and cite a paragraph from the opening pages of that text on modes of life: Forms of Life as commodities The society of the spectacle undoubtedly complies with technology-based, post-industrial capitalism, its logic of production as well as the modern logic of representation: it is the outcome of hyper-technologization and functionalization, codifying life and prescribing processes of subjectivation, which are nothing less than forms of subjugation. The new model up for debate, as it surpasses the model of developed modernity, introduces a completely new commodity to the game: the forms of life itself. In reference to Debord’s definition of the society of the spectacle, one could define this new model as “capital accumulated to the point that it becomes a form of life”. But first, in what sense can the term ‘life forms’ be used? The term has the fundamental task of introducing a different notion of life, which implies that there is no essentially determined life, only life forms, or rather modes of life: Life is the modalization of life... Traditional capitalism was based on the notion of growth: Working more efficiently and producing more meant an increase and expansion of leisure time for autonomous life beyond commerce, thus creating more space for forms of life that do not
[-empyre-] Urban Data Politics
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Hello all, Thanks so much Oron and Johannes for your compelling comments. What's intriguing to me is how much the conversation is an elaboration of last week's developing discussion on urbanization. That is, we seem to be running into the same frustrations but at a different scale of design (though I wouldn't want to separate bio and urban design too much, which I think we were beginning to touch on last week-- especially with Adrian's comments). In my last post, I mentioned affect precisely because it is a concept that has so often been marshaled to situate the human in pre-individual capacities for change. But it seems that this is what has been put into crisis (if you'll permit me using this term). Oron, this makes me think of your work on deep time. I wonder if you could discuss some of this work, and perhaps put some of our what is to be done tone (to reference Ross from last week) into perspective. I also want to use this as a segue into this week's topic, urban data politics, with Etienne Turpin and Davide Panagia. To draw our new guests into the conversation, I wonder how the Anthropocene thesis (Etienne) or Datapolitiks (Davide/Etienne) might help us negotiate some of these difficult questions? Thanks so much! Here the bios: Etienne Turpin (ID) is a philosopher researching, curating, and writing about complex urban systems, community resilience, and colonial-scientific history. He completed his Ph.D. (Philosophy) in the Department of Theory and Policy Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) of the University of Toronto. He is supported by a Vice-Chancellor's Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the SMART Infrastructure Facility, Faculty of Engineering and Information Science, and an Associate Research Fellowship with the Australian Center for Cultural Environmental Research, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Wollongong, Australia. With the support of these appointments, Etienne lives and works in Jakarta, where his research is coordinated through anexact office and supported by SMART's _GeoSocial Intelligence for Urban Livability Resilience_ Research Group. Prior to his work in Jakarta, Etienne was a Research Fellow at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan, where he also taught advanced design research and architecture history and theory, and coordinated research-based travel studios for the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. He has also taught in the architecture and landscape architecture graduate programs for the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto, and in the art history and visual culture undergraduate programs for the Department of Visual Studies, University of Toronto-Mississauga. Davide Panagia (US) is an Associate Professor of Political Science at UCLA and co-editor of the quarterly journal Theory Event (Johns Hopkins University Press). He received his Ph.D. in 2002 from Johns Hopkins and was previously Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in the Cultural Studies Department at Canada’s Trent University. Panagia’s teaching and research interests include contemporary political theory, the history of political thought, aesthetics of cultural theory, visual culture, and citizenship studies. His recent books include _The Poetics of Political Thinking _(2006),_The Political Life of Sensation_(2009), and _Impressions of Hume: Cinematic Thinking and the Politics of Discontinuity_ (2013). ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
Re: [-empyre-] Mediated Matters
--empyre- soft-skinned space--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.ca...@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-boun...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au [mailto: empyre-boun...@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-- ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
[-empyre-] Mediated Matters
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Hi all, I'd like to thank our invited guests, Ross and Adrian, for participating this past week, as well as all those who joined in the discussion! I'm really encouraged by what has been developing over the past week, especially in relation designing for/with uncertainty and wearable technologies. I do want to draw attention to the notion of the urban that Ross highlighted, which will be picked up again, I believe, in the last week. In any case, what you suggest re: urbanization seems to resonate with Neil Brenner’s work in important ways (e.g., his insightful introduction to the edited volume, Implosions/Explosions: Towards A Study of Planetary Urbanization), especially his central provocation that the urban has no outside (extending Lefebvre’s work). Though what I'm particularly intrigued by is your final question: How can we imagine a spatial organization truly beyond the urban? I think this responds in a really insightful way to how urban design in particular needs to become unrecognizable to itself. Though I wonder whether and how urbanization functions in other design practices, that is, continues and extends urbanization in different and often unrecognizable forms? In any case, I'd like to invite you all to continue the conversations from last week, as well as welcome Oron Catts who contributed to the month on bioart I hosted last September. I don't want to derail any important themes that are emerging here, but I'm sure that Oron will be able to offer some insight into the use of biodesign/tech that is geared toward more aesthetic and ethical forms of experimentation. Perhaps this will open up some interesting questions for Johannes and Susan as well. Welcome Oron! (Unfortunately, Luciana Parisi will not be able to join us due to a family emergency. Our thoughts are with you, Luciana.) Here is a bio for Oron: Oron Catts (AU) is an artist, researcher and curator whose pioneering work with the Tissue Culture and Art Project which he established in 1996 is considered a leading biological art project. In 2000 he co-founded SymbioticA, an artistic research centre housed within the School of Anatomy, Physiology and Human Biology, The University of Western Australia. Under Catts’ leadership SymbioticA has gone on to win the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica in Hybrid Art (2007) the WA Premier Science Award (2008) and became a Centre for Excellence in 2008. In 2009 Catts was recognised by Thames Hudson’s “60 Innovators Shaping our Creative Future” book in the category “Beyond Design”, and by Icon Magazine (UK) as one of the top 20 Designers, “making the future and transforming the way we work”. Catts interest is Life; more specifically the shifting relations and perceptions of life in the light of new knowledge and it applications. Often working in collaboration with other artists (mainly Dr. Ionat Zurr) and scientists, Catts have developed a body of work that speak volumes about the need for new cultural articulation of evolving concepts of life. Catts was a Research Fellow in Harvard Medical School, a visiting Scholar at the Department of Art and Art History, Stanford University, and a Visiting Professor of Design Interaction, Royal College of Arts, London. Catts’ ideas and projects reach beyond the confines of art; his work is often cited as inspiration to diverse areas such as new materials, textiles, design, architecture, ethics, fiction, and food. ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 118, Issue 1
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Hi all, Thanks, Ross, Adrian, and others for your great comments. I'm particularly encouraged and intrigued by Adrian's hope that we may be able to subvert neoliberalism via design in the public interest, and so on. I also want to draw attention to John's comments: ...but for the practices to be actualized we should suspend remote conversations that are mediated by a massive global telecommunications infrastructure that is fully dependent on hydrocarbons. (We are the neo-liberals here communicating via this technology) As I sit here writing and utterly dependent on hydrocarbons, I'm reminded of how interdependent practices and materials are in our neoliberalization of all last vestiges of a design future, and how their configuration will have to change, drastically, if we are indeed going to design _for_ a Future (which is what John's point is, I think). In this regard, I can't help but think of Jeanne van Heeswijk's work I saw this summer in Rotterdam ( http://www.jeanneworks.net/projects/freehouse_-_radicalizing_the_local/#/jeanneworks/); her project Freehouse reconceptualizes the very terms of design, altering its methods and materials, by designing social spaces for civil disobedience, which empower communities to become their own antidote. In any case, I'm curious about the extent to which design practices/materials need to become uncertain, or even unrecognizable, to themselves in order to generate the design space that Adrian has in mind. In the context of scientific practice, which has seen its share of commodification in the last decades, Isabelle Stengers draws on A. N. Whitehead's call for uncertainty in the face of scientific minds in a groove. In today's era of fast science that has locked in our future for us, slow science is a way to reclaim uncertain futures, by not reducing the world's messiness to what can be fixed. We cannot ignore messiness, she claims, by dreaming up or fantasizing about how to correct it; we have to learn to live with messiness, and learn from it. We have to become apprentices to mess even. This is what slow science asks of scientists. I guess I'm wondering whether we can make a similar appeal to slow design, and what that would look like. How would learning to design _with_ mess-- instead of trying to fix it-- reconfigure the practices/materials that have stolen uncertain futures from us? Just some thoughts... Thanks! On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 3:04 PM, John Hopkins jhopk...@neoscenes.net wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- But is not lost. I am intrigued and inspired by design practices that attempt to subvert the logic of neoliberalism. Design in the public interest, structures for inclusion, practices of commoning, and so forth are all exciting experiments with a more expanded understanding of the social basis of design as a constitutive power (to borrow from Hardt and Negri). Problem is, 99.999% of 'design practices' (as a cultural-social-academic-economic 'manifestation') are enclosed by a complete dependence on the wider hydrocarbon energy system -- precisely because those practices grew out of and exist because of the excess that contemporary (technological) energy sources have (temporarily and unsustainably!) produced... And, actually, we *will* eventually consume our way out of the environmental 'problem' -- when the energy source is all consumed, then there will be a massive re-set of the system. When the sustainable pre/post hydrocarbon population settles down to somewhere between, say, 0.5 and 1.0 billion of the human species, the environment will slowly re-evolve into something entirely different. (This scenario seems to be the most likely, as there is *no* slowing of consumption apparent on the wide scale...!) In some ways, it is a standard that it an anathema to Life (as a phenomena) to *not* consume when there is an available energy source. Humans try to think themselves out of this need for Life to consume energy to project itself into the future. But it would appear that the conscious thoughts aren't enough to change the actions that are a core part of evolved life. So, bravo for thinking about the practices, but for the practices to be actualized we should suspend remote conversations that are mediated by a massive global telecommunications infrastructure that is fully dependent on hydrocarbons. (We are the neo-liberals here communicating via this technology). Didn't Graham Harwood, or someone else of that ilk make a calculation as to how much energy is expended in sending an email? A few cents of afternoon meditation after having to walk home with a flat tire on my bike through sonic clouds of screeching cicadas. They will be around longer than we shall, neoloberalism or not! Cheers, JH -- ++ Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD grounded on a granite
[-empyre-] Neo-eco-liberalism
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Hi all, I'd like to welcome Ross Exo Adams and Adrian Parr to the first week at -empyre! This week's topic addresses what I'm calling, Neo-eco-liberalism. The title references the complicated way that ecological catastrophe dominates so many design discourses today. In an era when the Anthropocene (hypo)thesis is hotly debated in nearly all academic fields, it is designers in particular who often feel a responsibility to correct for the footprint left by modern, industrial-scale design, and design with an eye to the deep time of the planet. No doubt the myriad discourses on “sustainable,” “ecological,” or “smart” technologies come to mind as possible ways of addressing the deep time of design. For example, great progress has been made in the application of biotechnology, synthetic biology, and nanotechnology to design fields, so that “programmable” or “mediated matter” now provides a viable means for designing complex (even semi-living) systems that adapt and evolve in response to wider, non-human environments— surely a post-humanist framework for design. But as our guests know, the many discourses and technologies surrounding “sustainable” and “eco design do not easily avoid neoliberal capture, and in fact, have too often become a resource for private investors to strengthen the firm grip of capital. Urban developers in particular, as Ross has noted elsewhere, have been quick to embrace the discourse of “ecological catastrophe” as a way to ensure that the private development of urban space proceeds without reproach, and destroys the last vestiges of public space. As a way into this week's topic, I'm wondering if our guests would begin the conversation by meditating or complicating this tension. Here are our guests bios one more time: Ross Exo Adams (US) is an architect, urbanist and educator whose work looks at the political and historical intersection between circulation and urbanization. He is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Iowa State University. His writing has been published in Log, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, Radical Philosophy, Thresholds, Architectural Review among others. Previously he has taught at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, The Architectural Association, the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam, NL and at Brighton University in the UK. His work has been exhibited in the Venice Biennale, the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York City, the Centre of Contemporary Architecture in Moscow and the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam. As an architect and urban designer he has worked in offices such as MVRDV, Foster Partners, Arup Urban Design and Productora-DF. He holds a Master of Architecture from the Berlage Institute and a Ph.D. from the London Consortium for which he was awarded the 2011 LKE Ozolins Studentship by the RIBA. Adrian Parr (US/AU) specialist on the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, and has published widely on the sustainability movement, climate change politics, activist culture, and creative practice. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and School of Architecture and Interior Design at the University of Cincinnati. Some of her recent books include the _Deleuze Dictionary_ (ed.) (2005), _Hijacking Sustainability_ (2009), _New Directions in Sustainable Design_ (ed. with Michael Zaretsky) (2010), and _The Wrath of Capital: Neoliberalism and Climate Change Politics_ (2013). Thanks again! ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] Welcome Adam AJ Nocek, September 2014: Design That Matters
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Thanks for the kind introduction, Renate. I'm very happy to be back moderating another month at -empyre! We invite our network of –empyre subscribers to post with our invited guests, Ross Exo Adams (US), Adrian Parr (US/AU), Luciana Parisi (UK), Oron Catts (AU), Etienne Turpin (ID), Davide Panagia (US), and others on the topic, Design that Matters. Let’s make this an exciting and open discussion! This month at –empyre our invited guests will consider how extant and future design practices (operating at an indeterminate number of scales) deserve more attention in the theoretical humanities, and media studies in particular. Surely a case could be made that media studies already has a close relation to design practice/theory, and this is particularly evident in the last couple decades with the ubiquity of digital and parametric design, as well as open-source and DIY design practices, etc. Our guests will consider how this convergence is but one expression of a much larger problematic that occupies many designers/theorists today: namely, how to guide, redirect, or re-channel the many forces (chemical, atmospheric, digital, migratory, and urban) that mediate human experience in the age of global-scale capitalism. I’m partly inspired this month by Bruno Latour’s suggestion in a keynote address that he gave in 2008, in which he argues that design today implies (or in any case, should imply) a kind of modesty in the face of much wider environmental forces. Design is not a Promethean effort, that is, creation _ex nihilo_, but a subtle process of retooling what already exists. Design never begins from scratch, he contends; there is always something “_remedial_ in design.” This proposition will be explored in various registers this month at –empyre, with particular attention paid to the way in which design practices/theories are attentive to the “modest remediation” of experience in today’s political economy. In particular, we endeavor to find or invent conceptual tools to think design at the intersections of planetary urbanization and deep time, bio/nano-technology and neoliberal investment, architecture and computational capital, and design and media studies. We invite you to join in on the conversation! Here is the schedule: Neo-eco-liberalism: Ross Exo Adams (US) and Adrian Parr (US/AU) Mediated Matters: Oron Catts (AU), Luciana Parisi (UK), and A.J. Nocek (US) Urban Data Politics: Etienne Turpin (ID) and Davide Panagia Here are the Bios: Ross Exo Adams (US) is an architect, urbanist and educator whose work looks at the political and historical intersection between circulation and urbanization. He is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Iowa State University. His writing has been published in Log, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, Radical Philosophy, Thresholds, Architectural Review among others. Previously he has taught at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, The Architectural Association, the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam, NL and at Brighton University in the UK. His work has been exhibited in the Venice Biennale, the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York City, the Centre of Contemporary Architecture in Moscow and the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam. As an architect and urban designer he has worked in offices such as MVRDV, Foster Partners, Arup Urban Design and Productora-DF. He holds a Master of Architecture from the Berlage Institute and a Ph.D. from the London Consortium for which he was awarded the 2011 LKE Ozolins Studentship by the RIBA. Adrian Parr (US/AU) specialist on the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, and has published widely on the sustainability movement, climate change politics, activist culture, and creative practice. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and School of Architecture and Interior Design at the University of Cincinnati. Some of her recent books include the _Deleuze Dictionary_ (ed.) (2005), _Hijacking Sustainability_ (2009), _New Directions in Sustainable Design_ (ed. with Michael Zaretsky) (2010), and _The Wrath of Capital: Neoliberalism and Climate Change Politics_ (2013). Luciana Parisi (UK) is Reader and Convenor of the PhD programme in Cultural Studies, Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research focuses on philosophy and science to investigate potential conditions for ontological and epistemological change in culture, aesthetics and politics. Specifically engaging with cybernetics, information theories, computation and evolutionary theories, her work analyses the radical transformations of the body, nature, matter and thought in the context of technocapitalist developments in biotechnologies and computation. In 2004, she published _Abstract Sex: Philosophy, Biotechnology and the Mutations of Desire_ (Continuum Press). She has also written within the field of Media Philosophy and
[-empyre-] Thanks
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Hi all, Alas, September at -empyre- has come to a close. I'd like to thank both Renate and Tim for inviting me to moderate this month at -empyre-! I'd also especially like to thank this month's guests and subscribers for taking the time to participate in the discussion on bioart and its related themes. I think we covered a truly exceptional amount of ground... so thanks. It was a lot of fun. I look forward to the discussion next month! My best, Adam ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] New Scales of Living
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Hi all, Thanks, Phillip, for the wonderful question. I think you're right to point out the ambiguity in my use of design here. On the one hand, design functions in synthetic biology, as Adrian MacKenzie addresses so well in his 2009 article, Design in Synthetic Biology (here: http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/staff/mackenza/papers/mackenzie_synbio_design-nov09_web.pdf), as an engineering concept (so that synbio becomes a subset of engineering). And it is this concept of design that has found its way, rather forcefully, into bio-architectural discourse (esp. in Michael Hensel and David Benjamin). In this way, I think that instead of design deterritorializing scientific and design practices it may actually reinforce extremely dangerous hierarchies. This does not mean that design cannot offer useful conceptual tools, however. This summer I actually taught a study abroad course in the Netherlands on Dutch Design and Aesthetics. One of the most compelling themes that my students and I kept on returning to is how design, for many Dutch designers, is always *re-*design. There is no original or copy; design is always taking place in the middle of things -- in the midst, if you like. While Dutch design certainly has its fair share of micro-fascisms, tedious Modernisms, and so on, I think the notion of redesign is instructive here: it seems to capture -- in much more compelling way than design-as-engineering -- the noisy practice of building or designing biological parts in the lab (as Maureen O' Malley and Bernadette Bensaude Vincent have argued), and what it means for these parts to be redesigned as media for the built environment. Redesign privileges process over product. Perhaps it is in redesign and not design that we find our aesthetics. Thanks, Adam On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 2:58 PM, Phillip S Thurtle thur...@uw.edu wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- Interesting points, Adam. I see some interesting synergies with earlier posts as well. We've been using the analytic of aesthetics on the list and I'm wondering how that might relate to your use of design? Your suggestion at the end of the post regarding synbio suggests that design might be related more to engineering, although I don't think it a perfect overlap. Could you help me triangulate these three terms: design, engineering, and aesthetics? I realize that this is a lot to ask. Phillip On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 10:32 PM, Adam Nocek ano...@uw.edu wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- Hi all, I'd like to offer a few thoughts regarding New Scales of Living by picking up on something that Phillip wrote last week: the inside and outside the laboratory distinction is useful, but constantly needs to be tempered by identifying how labs are both privileged places as well as highly interlinked places. This strikes me as a critical insight, though I'd like to add -- and I think this is already implicit in Phillip's remarks-- that the concepts we construct are essential for producing modes of thought that do not privilege spaces like the biologist's laboratory. A.N. Whitehead's wrote something similar in his _Science and the Modern World_ when he calls for the re-engineering of our abstractions so that we resist the modern temptation to bifurcate nature into essential and non-essential qualities (e.g. the laboratory and then those other spaces). For Whitehead, these concepts need to be constructed and re-constructed. What's essential is not the concepts themselves, but rather their effects. Can they produce non-bifurcating modes of thought? With this in mind, I wonder in what ways design has become, or rather could become, a concept that challenges the privilege of the laboratory space? While design has certainly been important to biotechnology since the 70s and 80s, with the rise of synthetic biology in the last decade or so, it is now used to articulate the terms of a full-scale method: the application of design principles to biological systems. And yet professional design disciplines -- architectural and industrial design, specifically -- have become increasingly concerned with how the design of living systems in synbio make available new media for design (check out: http://www.syntheticaesthetics.org/) -- some architects even advocate that architecture is a form of artificial life at a non-standard scale. In this perspective, life has become designed and design has become living. I'm interested in what ways design challenges the laboratory space... or reinforces it at another level. Thanks, Adam On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 9:07 PM, Adam Nocek ano...@uw.edu wrote: Hi all, Once again, a terrific discussion this week. I'd like to extend a big thanks to Adam Z, Phillip, Nik and Maja for their contributions. I know there are still a lot of loose ends -- especially
Re: [-empyre-] New Scales of Living
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Hi all, I'd like to offer a few thoughts regarding New Scales of Living by picking up on something that Phillip wrote last week: the inside and outside the laboratory distinction is useful, but constantly needs to be tempered by identifying how labs are both privileged places as well as highly interlinked places. This strikes me as a critical insight, though I'd like to add -- and I think this is already implicit in Phillip's remarks-- that the concepts we construct are essential for producing modes of thought that do not privilege spaces like the biologist's laboratory. A.N. Whitehead's wrote something similar in his _Science and the Modern World_ when he calls for the re-engineering of our abstractions so that we resist the modern temptation to bifurcate nature into essential and non-essential qualities (e.g. the laboratory and then those other spaces). For Whitehead, these concepts need to be constructed and re-constructed. What's essential is not the concepts themselves, but rather their effects. Can they produce non-bifurcating modes of thought? With this in mind, I wonder in what ways design has become, or rather could become, a concept that challenges the privilege of the laboratory space? While design has certainly been important to biotechnology since the 70s and 80s, with the rise of synthetic biology in the last decade or so, it is now used to articulate the terms of a full-scale method: the application of design principles to biological systems. And yet professional design disciplines -- architectural and industrial design, specifically -- have become increasingly concerned with how the design of living systems in synbio make available new media for design (check out: http://www.syntheticaesthetics.org/) -- some architects even advocate that architecture is a form of artificial life at a non-standard scale. In this perspective, life has become designed and design has become living. I'm interested in what ways design challenges the laboratory space... or reinforces it at another level. Thanks, Adam On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 9:07 PM, Adam Nocek ano...@uw.edu wrote: Hi all, Once again, a terrific discussion this week. I'd like to extend a big thanks to Adam Z, Phillip, Nik and Maja for their contributions. I know there are still a lot of loose ends -- especially, on the nature of experiment, process, and pragmatics in relation to the Biochymickal Arts workshop (which I encourage you to look at!)-- so please continue discussing! This week I'd like to welcome Luciana Parisi to -empyre- Luciana and I will be considering how bioart might be extended to new and exciting scales. Here is short bio for Luciana: Luciana Parisi is Senior Lecturer/Convenor of the PhD in Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. Parisi’s research looks at the asymmetric relationship between science and philosophy, aesthetics and culture, technology and politics to investigate potential conditions for ontological and epistemological change. Her work on cybernetics and information theories, evolutionary theories, genetic coding and viral transmission has informed her analysis of culture and politics, the critique of capitalism, power and control. During the late 90s she worked with the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit at Warwick and has since been writing with Steve Goodman (aka kode 9). In 2004, she published Abstract Sex: Philosophy, Biotechnology and the Mutations of Desire (Continuum Press), where she departed from the critical impasse between notions of the body, sexuality, gender on the one hand, and studies of science and technologies on the other. Her work engaged with ontological and epistemological transformations entangled to the technocapitalist development of biotechnologies, which un-intentionally re-articulated models of evolutions, questioning dominant conceptions of sex, femininity and desire. Since the publication of Abstract Sex, she has also written on the bionic transformation of the perceptive sensorium triggered by new media, on the advancement of new techno-ecologies of control, and on the nanoengineering of matter. She has published articles about the relation between cybernetic machines, memory and perception in the context of a non-phenomenological critique of computational media and in relation to emerging strategies of branding and marketing. Her interest in interactive media has also led her research to engage more closely with computation, cognition, and algorithmic aesthetics. Parisi’s latest monograph, Contagious Architecture. Computation, Aesthetics and Space (MIT Press,2013), reflect these concerns. Thanks, Adam ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
[-empyre-] New Scales of Living
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Hi all, Once again, a terrific discussion this week. I'd like to extend a big thanks to Adam Z, Phillip, Nik and Maja for their contributions. I know there are still a lot of loose ends -- especially, on the nature of experiment, process, and pragmatics in relation to the Biochymickal Arts workshop (which I encourage you to look at!)-- so please continue discussing! This week I'd like to welcome Luciana Parisi to -empyre- Luciana and I will be considering how bioart might be extended to new and exciting scales. Here is short bio for Luciana: Luciana Parisi is Senior Lecturer/Convenor of the PhD in Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. Parisi’s research looks at the asymmetric relationship between science and philosophy, aesthetics and culture, technology and politics to investigate potential conditions for ontological and epistemological change. Her work on cybernetics and information theories, evolutionary theories, genetic coding and viral transmission has informed her analysis of culture and politics, the critique of capitalism, power and control. During the late 90s she worked with the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit at Warwick and has since been writing with Steve Goodman (aka kode 9). In 2004, she published Abstract Sex: Philosophy, Biotechnology and the Mutations of Desire (Continuum Press), where she departed from the critical impasse between notions of the body, sexuality, gender on the one hand, and studies of science and technologies on the other. Her work engaged with ontological and epistemological transformations entangled to the technocapitalist development of biotechnologies, which un-intentionally re-articulated models of evolutions, questioning dominant conceptions of sex, femininity and desire. Since the publication of Abstract Sex, she has also written on the bionic transformation of the perceptive sensorium triggered by new media, on the advancement of new techno-ecologies of control, and on the nanoengineering of matter. She has published articles about the relation between cybernetic machines, memory and perception in the context of a non-phenomenological critique of computational media and in relation to emerging strategies of branding and marketing. Her interest in interactive media has also led her research to engage more closely with computation, cognition, and algorithmic aesthetics. Parisi’s latest monograph, Contagious Architecture. Computation, Aesthetics and Space (MIT Press,2013), reflect these concerns. Thanks, Adam ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
[-empyre-] Living Experiments
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Hi all, A wonderful discussion this week. I thank you all for participating! I thoroughly enjoyed -- and I am continuing to enjoy -- all your posts on bioart and related fields. I'm especially intrigued by the discussion on aesthetics. I think that bringing together Neal White, Jennifer Fisher, among others, into conversation with Brian Massumi and A.N. Whitehead et al. is challenging and important work. More thoughts later. I'd like to extend a special thanks to Oron Catts and Rich Doyle for their wonderful contributions this week! This week I'd like to welcome four new guests into the fold: Adam Zaretsky (who is no stranger!), Phillip Thurtle, Maja Kuzmanovic, and Nik Gaffney. Here is a bit of bio for each of our guests: Phillip Thurtle is director of the Comparative History of Ideas program and associate professor in History at the University of Washington. Thurtle is the author of The Emergence of Genetic Rationality: Space, Time, and Information in American Biology 1870-1920 (University of Washington Press, 2008), the co-author with Robert Mitchell and Helen Burgess of the interactive DVD-ROM BioFutures: Owning Information an Body Parts (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), and the co-editor with Robert Mitchell of the volumes Data Made Flesh: Embodying Information (Routledge, 2003) and Semiotic Flesh: Information and the Human Body (University of Washington Press, 2002). His research focuses on the material culture of information processing, the affective-phenomenological domains of media, the role of information processing technologies in biomedical research, and theories of novelty in the life sciences. His most recent work is on the cellular spaces of transformation in evolutionary and developmental biology research and the cultural spaces of transformation in superhero comics. Adam Zaretsky, Ph.D. is a Wet-Lab Art Practitioner mixing Ecology, Biotechnology, Non-human Relations, Body Performance and Gastronomy. Zaretsky stages lively, hands-on bioart production labs based on topics such as: foreign species invasion (pure/impure), radical food science (edible/inedible), jazz bioinformatics (code/flesh), tissue culture (undead/semi-alive), transgenic design issues (traits/desires), interactive ethology (person/machine/non-human) and physiology (performance/stress). A former researcher at the MIT department of biology, for the past decade Zaretsky has been teaching an experimental bioart class called VivoArts at: San Francisco State University (SFSU), SymbioticA (UWA), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), University of Leiden’s The Arts and Genomic Centre (TAGC), and with the Waag Society. In the past two years he has taught DIY-IGM at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and New York University (NYU). He also runs a public life arts school: VASTAL (The Vivoarts School for Transgenic Aesthetics Ltd.) His art practice focuses on an array of legal, ethical, social and libidinal implications of biotechnological materials and methods with a focus on transgenic humans. http://www.youtube.com/VASTALschool http://www.youtube.com/VASTALschool Maja Kuzmanovic holds a Master of Arts in Interactive Multimedia and her specialization is interactive film and storytelling. She is currently director of the Brussels-based laboratory, FoAM, where she works with various art and technology collectives and explores novel modes and resources of cultural expression. She was involved in the development of the Design Technology course at the Utrecht School of the Arts. She previously worked as Artist in Residence at the Center for Mathematics and Computer Science in Amsterdam, and the National Center for Information Technology in Sankt Augustin, Germany. In 1999, Kuzmanovic was named by MIT’s Technology Review Magazine as one of the top 100 young innovators of the year. Her current interests span alternate reality storytelling, patabotany, resilience, speculative culture and techno-social aspects of food food systems. Nik Gaffney is a founding member of the Brussels-based laboratory, FoAM, as well as a media-systems researcher. Gaffney has previously worked as a graphic designer and programmer for Razorfish AG in Hamburg and Moniteurs in Berlin. His studies covered the fields of computer science, cognitive science and organic chemistry at Adelaide University. As one of the founders of the artists' collective, mindfluX, he worked on installation pieces, performances and the editing and distribution of the electronic magazine mindvirus. Gaffney has been an active collaborator in the performance group Heliograph, helping shape their vision for hybrid arts performance. He is a member of and prominent contributor to farmersmanual, a pan-european, net-based, multisensory disturbance conglomerate, whose 'ship of fools' filled the canals of Venice with sound during the 2001 Biennale. ___ empyre forum
[-empyre-] Ethics of the Semi-Living
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Dear all, First, I'd like to thank our two guests, Rob Mitchell and Cary Wolfe, for an excellent conversation this past week! I think that their insightful comments were able bring bioart and biopolitcs into new proximity. While there were certainly more questions raised than answered -- for example, the relation between populations and bioart, the meaning of an affirmative biopolitics, the affirmation of death, the exhibition contexts, and so on -- I think this attests to the importance of (re)framing the political stakes of bioart in biopolitical terms. I'm sure that we will have many opportunities to revisit and redevelop threads from this conversation in the next few weeks. Thanks! This week I'm delighted to welcome Oron Catts and Richard Doyle to the discussion at -empyre- and invite them to consider specific uses of biomedia and how they might challenge us to reframe some of our guiding assumptions about ethics and life. Here is a short bio for both Oron and Richard: Oron Catts is an artist, researcher and curator whose pioneering work with the Tissue Culture and Art Project, which he established in 1996, is considered a leading biological art project. In 2000 he co-founded SymbioticA, an artistic research center housed within the School of Anatomy, Physiology and Human Biology, The University of Western Australia. Under Catts’ leadership SymbioticA has gone on to win the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica in Hybrid Art (2007) the WA Premier Science Award (2008) and became a Centre for Excellence in 2008. In 2009 Catts was recognized by Thames Hudson’s “60 Innovators Shaping our Creative Future” book in the category “Beyond Design”, and by Icon Magazine (UK) as one of the top 20 Designers, “making the future and transforming the way we work”. Catts interests lie in shifting relations and perceptions of life in the light of new knowledge and it applications. Often working in collaboration with other artists (mainly Dr. Ionat Zurr) and scientists, Catts have developed a body of work that speak volumes about the need for new cultural articulation of evolving concepts of life. Catts was a Research Fellow in Harvard Medical School, a visiting Scholar at the Department of Art and Art History, Stanford University, and a Visiting Professor of Design Interaction, Royal College of Arts, London. Catts’ ideas and projects reach beyond the confines of art; his work is often cited as inspiration to diverse areas such as new materials, textiles, design, architecture, ethics, fiction, and food. Richard Doyle is Professor of English, Affiliate Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Convenor of the Penn State Center for Nano Futures at Penn State University, and was Visiting Associate Professor at UC Berkeley, Department of Rhetoric in 2003. Doyle has published three monographs, On Beyond Living: Rhetorical Transformations of the Life Sciences (Stanford, 1997), Wetwares: Experiments in PostVital Living (Minnesota, 2003), and Darwin's Pharmacy: Sex, Plants and the Evolution of The Noösphere (University of Washington Press, 2011), that form a trilogy about emerging transhuman knowledges. These knowledges and practices, linked to molecular biology, artificial life, nanotechnology, psychedelic and information technologies, render the experiential distinctions between living systems and machines frequently dubious and often indiscernible. This excited and confused rhetorical membrane between humans and an informational universe nonetheless broadcasts a clear message: humans, in co-evolution with the technical matrices transforming the planet, find themselves in an evolutionary ecology that is as urgent as it is experimental. Doyle’s is also at work on book, Admixtures: Dialogues After Genomics, with Anthropologist, Mark Shriver. With Shriver Doyle founded the The Penn State Center for Altered Consciousness, which investigates the genetics and phenomenology of legally altered consciousness with the help of a flotation tank. ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] First Postings
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Thanks, Adam, for these helpful reflections. I'd like to try to tie together some threads in order to encourage some discussion. It seems to me that Rob's concern over death and affirmation-- or at least as he's expressed it so far-- can be related to Adam Z's experiences with biomedia and their politics .Life is uncontained, oozing revelry and consuming lewdness… this is a question of affirmation. Can we be all accepting? This question strikes me as absolutely critical since using biomedia is, as both Adam and Rob suggest, messy and uncontained -- it is slimy, oozing, rotting. What are the intersections among death, affirmation, messy bioart and politics? Incidentally, I couldn't help but think of Nick Land's critique of philosophies of life (for those of you familiar), and whether there are certain bioart practices that invoke thanatropic/accelerationist principles instead of vitalist ones. And what new intersections between dark media and life would be generated? In an earlier post, I invoked Whitehead's remark that life is robbery in order to suggest, as Whitehead himself does, that there is not a straightforward opposition between life and organismic death. My sense is that bioart is, or at any rate, could be an absolutely critical site for complicating the life/death relation in the (affirmative) biopolitical landscape. Thoughts? Thanks, Adam On Wed, Sep 4, 2013 at 5:37 AM, Adam Zaretsky e...@emutagen.com wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- Thanks Adam N. for having a mind meld on these topics. Good crew! Off the top, Bioart is living-materials-first in my addled brain. No offense to the object oriented animism of listmania but tinkers and tailors of life feel the experience differently than illustrators. The use of biomedia for aesthetic projection is the ethico-political stake we wield. The blood on the hands is part of the sacrificial rite, neh? That being sort of put out there bare, I am more interested in the debate being started in terms of the potentials for positive declension in the moulding of populations. I have to say that optimism in biopolitics, even in terms of techno-breeding for novel feelings, is not a total ruse. A trajectory from Charles Fourier, to Willhelm Reich, to Buckmister Fuller, not to mention the Bronx cheer of Charles Fort, trace the potential for a river of amorous flows. But can we really limit the emphasis on the work of the negative in Foulcault to that of a gore hound, netcasting for yet another Gilles de Rais? We have to remember that philosophy is caught up in the industrial confessionary. We may be parrahesiac cheerleaders, spreading liturgy for liturgy¹s sake, but the toying with fascism is just an armchair away from the radiation's leak. Mayr's migrating populations shower us with difference, but population genetics is being marketed as a post race identity politics for those in need of a new origin story from which to promulgate neo-superiorities (see http://www.ancestry.com/). In terms of affirming affirmation, to distort et echo Cary, I can only find it through that deep ecospheric indiscriminacy that Rob mentioned. Is the work of the positive to posit a function of the organism, orgasmically in optimismÉ in every direction? I hope so. Life is uncontained, oozing revelry and consuming lewdness. A snail-like acting is wet and slap-happy and on itÕs way. This is the question of affirmation. Can we be all accepting. This is a more systemic question, which should be looked at a variety of magnifications: The Panspermic Cosmos, The 'Gaia at Werk' Planetary Organism, Populations/Variations/Migrations/Meshing, The Crust Operas of Vitality (Spartan/Hedonism of Being inCorporate), The Organs without a Body (BatailleÕs Big Toe), The Selfish life of Cells, Subcellular Congeniality (hanging out on the sofas of the Endoplasmic Reticulum, alternative conformating). ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] Bioart and the Vital Politics of Populations
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Thanks for a truly excellent post, Rob. I'm intrigued by the way in which bioart creeps back into the end of your wonderful post by extending biopolitics (understood through population thinking) to non-human populations. This is compelling to me for a variety of reasons, not least of which is how it counters the accusation that Foucauldian biopolitics is anthropocentric in scope. As you know, Roberto Esposito, who you invoke at the end of your piece, albeit negatively, has done much to dispel the myth that biopolitics is reducible to its _negative declensions_; he does so, of course, through immunity, a category he criticizes Foucault for neglecting, which must be inverted in order to protect what it is it formerly had to deny in order to exist as _thanatopolitical_. There are many problems with Esposito's immunity thesis of course, as Cary Wolfe among others has pointed out, but I wonder whether your link between populations and bioart is similarly invested in cashing out the terms of an affirmative biopolitics. Let me try to be more specific: a more robust sense of population -- in its Mayrian and not Malthusian sense -- would seem to create the conditions for, as you say developing new approaches to population from within existing models of populations, as _Rythm 0_ seems to; and bioart would [expand] upon this approach to populations and biopolitics, and in large part by emphasizing, as you claim, linkages between human and non-human populations. My sense here is that you're attempting to develop the conditions for an affirmative biopolitics that is inclusive of the non-human (perhaps in concert with Esposito) by means of what it is implicit in Foucault's _own_ understanding of population (something that Esposito misses); and in this perspective, bioart becomes an essential site for this biopolitical work. I'm wondering if you could comment on this, perhaps by spelling out how you see bioart functioning in this biopolitical landscape. Thanks, Rob! Best, Adam On Sun, Sep 1, 2013 at 1:12 PM, Rob Mitchell rmi...@duke.edu wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- Dear all, My thanks to Adam for having invited me to contribute to this discussion about BioArt: Materials, Practices, Politics. And my sincere apologies in advance to the list for the length of my post: Adam and I were laboring until this morning under a misinterpretation about the desired length for these initial posts, but since I had already composed my post, I'm sending it as is than cutting massively and in haste. Though I have written a bit about the politics of bioart in _Bioart and the Vitality of Media_--arguing there, for example, against a simplistic understanding of bioartworks as primarily good or bad communications cast into a public sphere of debate--I would like to take a slightly different approach here by focusing on the connection between bioart and biopolitics. Such an approach may not initially strike all readers of -empyre- as encouraging--isn't that connection rather obvious, and in any case, is there really need for yet more on the seemingly well-worn topic of biopolitics? But I nevertheless hope that what follows can provide us with a new way of thinking about both the politics and the vitality of bioart. More specifically, I'd like to think about what we might call the aesthetics of biopolitics, by which I mean the ways in which biopolitical assumptions and projects--and especially assumptions about the importance of difference and variation for populations--have come to establish a more general frame for the experiences that now count as beautiful, picturesque, sublime, disgusting, thrilling, etc. Since much of what follows is oriented toward a theory of population, a brief initial sketch of a bioart example will establish, I hope, the plausibility and utility of thinking bioart in terms of biopolitics, biopolitics in terms of populations, and populations in terms of difference and variation. My example--Eduardo Kac's _Genesis_--is admittedly well-worn, but it is also (and by that token) well-known, and so I can avoid a long description of the project here. (If you don't know the project, a description is available here: http://www.ekac.org/geninfo.html.) As many commentators have demonstrated, one can analyze _Genesis_ in terms of various themes: questions of translation; the shift from a theological to a post-theological world; questions of human dominion and power; and so on. However, at a formal level, _Genesis_ is above all else an attempt to link three different populations, and in such a way that the differences in each of these populations communicate with one another. Thus, _Genesis_ uses the art gallery to link a genetically-engineered population of _E. coli_ to both a relatively small population of humans who visit the art gallery and to a much larger population of humans
