[rohrpost] Art, the Body& Biotechnology: Reading (Genetic) Codes As Cultural Signs, IASS Lyon 7.-12. July

[Ingeborg Reichle]

8. th. Congress of the International Association for Semiotic Studies 
(IASS), 7.-12. July 2004 in Lyon.

505 - Tables rondes (5/6.Sémiotique des pratiques esthétiques)
Art, the Body& Biotechnology: Reading (Genetic) Codes As Cultural Signs /
Art, corps et biotechnologies : lire les codes (génétique) comme des signes
Co-chairs / responsables : Marga van Mechelen, Ernestine Daubner


Abstract of Round Table 9th of July 2004:

How has biotechnology transformed conceptions of the body and other 
natural organisms? How have
genetic engineering techniques that manipulate biological bodies altered 
our conception of nature and
culture? Bio-(tech) art, an emerging art form, encompassing genetic art, 
transgenic art, clone art, cell
art and other genres, addresses these issues in challenging ways. 
Eradicating the separation between
art and life, such live art practice effectively serves to decode the 
manner in which art and
(bio)technology operate as cultural signs. In this session, we wish to 
examine the semiotic and epistemological dimensions of the new 
(micro-)biological bodies produced by bio-(tech) art and science, and 
particularly how (genetic and
cultural) codes relate to: cultural inscriptions of the body; the 
relation between nature and culture and
its affect on the search for what Rheinberger calls “Begrifflichkeit; 
traditional aesthetics and art
discourse; theories of post-structuralism, post-phenomenology, 
post-humanism and to post-modern
theories of the cyborg as a transcending condition of fluidity, of 
open-endedness, and slipping
boundaries.

PRESENTERS
Co-Chairs:
Marga van Mechelen, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Ernestine Daubner, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada

Participants: (in alphabetical order)
Suzanne Anker, School of Visual Arts, New York,
Bioteknica Shawn Bailey & Jennifer Willet, Concordia University, 
Montreal, Canada
Dalia Chauveau, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada
Christine Palmieri, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada
Ingeborg Reichle, Humboldt University Berlin, Germany
Miriam van Rijsingen, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

ABSTRACTS

Ernestine Daubner, Concordia University (co-chair)

When Art & Biotechnology Meet: The Semiotics of Chimeras & Other Monsters /
La rencontre de l’art et de la biotechnologie : la sémiotique des 
chimères et autres monstres

For over a century now, the visual arts have challenged traditional 
categories of art, its aesthetic function, as
well as the role of the artist and the viewer. Body art is a case in 
point. When the artist’s performative flesh
entered the art arena, the body became both signifier and signified, 
both object and sign. At the same time, the
body became a battleground, serving, for example, to repudiate 
representational conventions, cultural
inscriptions of gender and ethnicity, as well as aesthetic and 
Enlightenment conceptions of the body. Recent
techno-performances have disrupted semiotic and cultural codes once 
again: this time, by introducing the
object-body (of science) into the realm of art. The fusion of a reified 
body with technologies embodies a posthuman
cyborgian condition that counters the very conception of the body 
posited, for centuries, by the
Humanities. In this light, one may ask how emerging biotechnological art 
practices relate to such a cyborgian
condition; and whether the diverse ‘live’ artworks, currently being 
created, similarly dismantle humanistic
inscriptions of the body, of nature, indeed of ‘life’ itself. Certainly, 
one can say that the new ‘living’ bioengineered
art creations conflate artistic and scientific codes. However, by 
employing tissue and genetic
engineering as well as other biotechnologies, artists bring very 
different kinds of ‘living’ entities into the realm
of art: chimeras, clones, monstrous living tissue, and other mutable and 
regenerative (microbiological) bodies.
But how do these ‘living’ entities, engendered from the marriage of art 
and science, operate semiotically? In
this presentation I will consider this question by examining specific 
examples of biotech art. I will illustrate
that, once born into an artistic domain, these brave new ‘living’ 
entities have the ability to escape their purely
scientific codes: breeding, multiplying, proliferating, and freely 
mutating into a myriad of cultural signs.


Ingeborg Reichle, Humboldt University Berlin

Pandora´s Box ? Genetic Engineering in Contemporary Art

Contemporary approaches to art and biology reveal to us today again the 
complex relationship between art and
science, especially the use of controversial technologies like genetic 
engineering. In the last two decades we
have seen a number of artists who left the traditional artistic 
playground to work instead in scientific contexts,
like the laboratories of molecular biologists. In this paper I will 
critically explore the new artform Transgenic
Art and I will show how this new art form both dramatically differs from 
artworks which explore art and
genetics through the use of traditional media and how at the same time 
it reanimates myths about artists which
were already formulated by art theorists in antiquity. My argument I 
will focus on works of artists like Eduardo
Kac (Art Institute of Chicago) and the artists group SymbioticA 
(University of Western Australia). Central to
these contemporaty art works is the relationship between art and the 
central scientific paradigm of the genetic
code, as well as the reflection about the technology of molecular 
biology and of bioinformatics. These artists
create new life forms, new organisms which are more or less technofacts 
rather than natural organisms.
But with the production of new organisms through art, it seems that 
artists again challenge the reception of what
is art and what is nature.

Christine Palmieri, Université du Québec à Montréal

Enjeux sémiotiques des nouvelles représentations

Les arts biotechnologiques nous forcent à poser la question : Où finit 
le vivant et où commence l’artifice ? Ils
proposent de nouvelles représentations du monde en inventant non plus de 
nouvelles fictions mais de possibles
réalités jusque-là fantasmées. Devant ces nouvelles uvres qui manipulent 
autant le vivant que l’intelligence
artificielle tout se joue entre l’apparence et l’apparaître, entre la 
monstration et la révélation dans l’équation
complexe de l’irrationalité rationalisée. Devant l’effondrement de ces 
frontières et devant ces uvres qui
semblent éliminer le mode représentationnel au profit d’un mode direct, 
comment appréhender tout signe
esthétique communicationnel. Ma pratique artistique, se présentant sous 
forme de labo, met sous observation ce
monde en devenir par le biais d’un être fictionnel, un professeur de 
dernière génération d’hybrides ou de
chimères du futur. Avec lui nous essaierons de voir comment appréhender 
sémiotiquement certaines de ces
pratiques.

Dalia Chauveau, Université du Québec à Montréal

L’agence de clonage Dalia Chauveau, une mise en pratique de la 
construction d’une image de soi.

Comment l’agence de clonage Dalia Chauveau, une uvre en arts 
médiatiques, par sa conceptualisation
structurelle et thématique, peut permettre la création d’un lieu où 
l’art et l’interactivité servent d’éléments
déclencheurs à l’amorce d’une réflexion au sujet des biotechnologies par 
la mise en pratique d’une construction
d’une image de soi désirée et fabriquée de toutes pièces ? À la lumière 
des enjeux esthétiques contemporains, cette recherche artistique tend à 
susciter un questionnement épistémologique et cette présentation aura 
pour but de mettre en lumière sa structuration esthétique et perceptive. 
Ce besoin de saisir le réel dans toutes ses manifestations et de 
l’articuler est très
ancien. Ce même besoin alimente les pratiques des artistes qui 
travaillent la thématique des biotechnologies. Il
ne s’agit plus de saisir le réel, mais de saisir des réels possibles, à 
venir, invisibles ou amorcés et de les
déconstruire. Les mises en formes diffèrent d’un artiste à l’autre. 
Certains adoptent une approche de création à partir
de la matière organique biologique, d’autres l’orchestration d’une mise 
en scène participative, fictive et critique,
suite à laquelle les participants vivent une expérience qui servira de 
moteur à un débat et/ou à une réflexion.
D’autres optent pour une approche contemplative dans le but de provoquer 
une réflexion à propos d’un devenir
post-biotechnologique par le biais de la mise en image d’une 
manipulation. Dans ce contexte, mon travail se
situe entre deux approches. Il conjugue une approche relationnelle, 
intimiste, menant à une représentation
imagée d’un soi post-manipulation, qui découlerait de cette expérience 
interactive.
Cette présentation aura pour objectif de voir comment cette uvre se 
situe dans ce contexte et quelle est
sa dynamique symbolique, à la jonction entre l’esthétique et la 
psychanalyse. Quelle est la portée du débat
social qu’elle engendre ? Quelles sont les racines de ce désir de 
fabrication de soi qu’elle suscite ? À quoi
réfère cette image d’un soi idéalisé qu’elle met de l’avant ? Le miroir 
interactif artistique peut-il, dans ce
contexte, servir de lieu de réflexion à propos du regard porté sur soi 
et à propos des enjeux biotechnologiques ?


Bioteknica (Shawn Bailey & Jennifer Willet) Concordia University

3D Organic Tissue Prototypes (Soft Sculptures)

BIOTEKNICA is a fictitious corporation, which explores notions of 
reproduction and self/other distinctions in
relation to evolving biotechnologies. BIOTEKNICA projects its viewers 
into the future, where within our
virtual laboratory designer organisms are generated on demand. However, 
the organisms produced by
BIOTEKNICA do not adhere to the structures and functionality normally 
manifest in nature. Similar to
mutations depicted in The Fly and Aliens our specimens are irrational 
and grotesque. They are modeled on the
Teratoma, an unusual cancerous growth containing multiple human tissues 
like hair, skin and teeth. Monstrous
as this seems, scientists today are conducting research on the Teratoma 
with the goal of developing future
therapeutic cloning technologies. BIOTEKNICA both embraces and critiques 
these technologies, considering
the contradictions and deep underlying complexities of contemporary 
biotechnologies role in the future of
humanity. In the past, BIOTEKNICA has been a purely Multimedia 
production; however, we seek to bring our
theoretical specimens out of their virtual environment and into the 
laboratory. We have been invited to work as
Research Fellows at the SymbioticA Art/Science Laboratories at The 
University of Western Australia in the
summer of 2004, where we will grow organic prototypes that will serve as 
new representations of our product
line. Here, we wish to develop soft sculptures that tip the scales 
between representation and reality, based on
tissues cultivated under the supervision of scientists further 
contributing to the complexities and social
discourses that arise from our project.

Marga van Mechelen, University of Amsterdam (co-chair)

Infectious or immune? The semiotic systems of medical science and art

One way in which the indexical sign was traditionally illustrated was by 
means of red spots as the symptoms of
measles. In major viral illnesses, such visual signs usually remain 
hidden from view, however. The theory of
symptoms was originally an important semiotic discipline within medical 
science, but its importance has been
diminished first by X-ray technology and now even more emphatically by 
the diagnostic possibilities of new
scan technologies that visualize our internal body. When we consider the 
diagnostic value of MRI scans, we
base ourselves on the authority of the scan as an advanced iconic sign, 
a so-called hard icon (Tomas
Maldonado), and not as an indexical sign. The semiotic system of scans 
seems to coincide with the return of the
first approach to photography (as iconic sign) that stands in opposition 
to the notion of photography as indexical
sign, stressed since the eighties (amongst others by Dubois and J.M. 
Schaeffer). I wish to consider whether
contemporary cultural productions in the field of art, the body and 
biotechnology follow the same direction as
the developments in medical science and photography at least the way I 
have presented them so far. In what
respect(s) do they relate to each other, and if they do not, why not? 
How do sign systems, sign productions,
intentionality and objectives interrelate? I will investigate these 
questions by an analysis of a few examples
taken from the scientific and artistic production examined by 
participants of the round table.
505 - Tables rondes (5/6.Sémiotique des pratiques esthétiques)

Art, the Body& Biotechnology: Reading (Genetic) Codes As Cultural Signs /
Art, corps et biotechnologies : lire les codes (génétique) comme des signes
Co-chairs / responsables : Marga van Mechelen, Ernestine Daubner

Miriam van Rijsingen, University of Amsterdam

Visual Genomics - Material Script: reading material identities

In my paper I will address the issue of material identity as it is 
engineered in both the genetic and the artistic
lab. Both labs develop new representational spaces in which Nature and 
Culture collapse (Rheinberger) or
Nature and Culture are considered as techniques of the living of life 
(Haraway, Hayles). More specifically: in
these new representational spaces new ways of understanding the 
signifying dynamics of data and matter,
information and biology, code and body are proclaimed (e.g. Thacker). 
But how are we to understand these new
signifying dynamics? And what do they reveal exactly? As an example I 
will focus on the dynamics of the new artistic/biotech portrait. Three 
categories are under scrutiny: portraits using in vitro technology; 
portraits using genetic sequencing; and portraits using tissue 
technology-producing synthetic genes.

Suzanne Anker, School of Visual Arts, New York

Digital Darwinism and the Molecular Gaze

Picturing DNA, avatar of twentieth century molecules, to a general 
audience is an act of blind faith. Rendered
exclusively through instrumentation and intellectual grasp, the 
subdivisible entity is the matrix of all known
life. Aside from scientific data, the optical gaze reveals structure 
while creating spectacular visual worlds
through the medium of the microscope, crystallography, sequencing gels, 
magnetic imaging et al. The ways in
which DNA is visualized and comprehended as a system of signs assumes 
many complex patterns which bring
into focus questions regarding biological metaphor and its role in the 
visual arts. In addition to the
informational values of these scientific icons, the attendant cultural 
dimensions of genetic imaging and
processing continues to penetrate visual culture at large. What are 
genetic icons, symbols and indices? How do
molecular metaphors reinforce the development of visual art’s particular 
practice and history?
Trial hypothesis, curios of data and experiments of repeatability, 
identify empiricism’s system of
inquiry, the scientific method. Through an analysis of matter’s 
underlying phenomena, this system establishes
rules of entry whereby procedure and product are mathematically steered. 
This program’s coherence disallows
interlopers of any kind. It is a regime of rationalist obsession, a to 
and fro between process and probability. In
this monogamous affair, the rules are consistency, persistency and 
faithfulness. Is such an immutable entity, a
constant, possible within the practice of visual art? Or does spectacle 
and style prohibit such a proposition?
Formed by fluctuating guises which significantly underscore different 
historical, ahistorical and post-historical
propositions, the practice of art, none-the-less consistently relies on 
transforming material into metaphor.
In deciphering the molecular gaze as it impinges on digital Darwinism, 
five themes concurrently
operating within this domain will be referenced: 1) the reduction of the 
body to code-script of information, 2)
mutation, manipulation and monsters as a form of the new grotesque 3) 
the blurring of boundaries through
chimeras and transgenics, 4) reprotech and the breeding of better 
babies, 5) commodification and the sale of
genetic substances. Each theme will be explored through visual art.

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http://sites.univ-lyon2.fr/semio2004