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Chapter 16 - Aesthetic Manipulation of Life

from Part III - Posthumanities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 November 2020

Sherryl Vint
Affiliation:
University of California, Riverside
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Summary

In recent times human-made dry, electrical, mechanical, digital, and algorithmic technologies are becoming more lifelike, while at the same time biological, moist, messy life are treated more as controllable technologies. What are the reasons that compel humans to attempt to assert control over living systems that exist independently from us, while at the same time relinquishing control over non-living technologies?  Living in times of technological acceleration and unfolding ecological catastrophe, we face a poverty of available metaphors and, more importantly, a poverty of our language in relation to Life. This lack is being occupied by artistic expressions, where artists engage with the materiality of biological bodies to articulate new meanings and poetics. Here, we will explore these phenomena through the genre of BioArt (AKA Biological Art), which gained momentum from the mid-nineties and had effects beyond the art world, impacting industry and the public imagination.

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After the Human
Culture, Theory and Criticism in the 21st Century
, pp. 236 - 251
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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