WEEK 9

Eugene Thacker- Data Made Flesh: Biotechnology and the Discourse of the Posthuman

&

Joan Hawkins- When Taste Politics Meet Terror

Posthumanism according to Thacker has 2 threads: 1) extropianism- theorizing the human condition through science and technology, 2) more critical post humanism- human and machine, flesh and data, genetic and computer "codes." Thacker questions how far a human can be integrated with machine, before he or she is no longer considered human. It somewhat reminds me of the Cyborg Manifesto mentioned in Week 7. He states that human nature is what keeps us all from becoming machines. That in order for us to remain human, was must at all times keep reason, intelligence, etc a constant in our human behavior.  He also states that the posthuman should use technology as a tool, that we have to create boundaries if we are to remain human.  I believe that regardless of technological advance, humans are technology and technology is human. We created the technology, therefore we should be able to keep our humanity.  Our history as humans can not be erased, ask yourself "What makes you, you?"

How far can you take art without getting in trouble?? Joan Hawkins writes about Steve Kurtz and his art dubbing him a "bio-terrorist." He was arrested for this the same day he called the cops to tell them his wife had died, while asleep in their bed.  He was transporting Serratia marcescens and Bacillus atrophaeus over state lines for his art work.  Both are not on the biological terrorism list.  

"It's really going to have a chilling effect on the type of work people are going to do in this arena and other arenas as well… clear case of artistic and academic freedom."

So what can you produce, what can you not? Its in the name of art, right!?

Eduardo Kac- GFP (Green Fluorescent Protein) Bunny

(a new art form based on the use of genetic engineering to transfer natural or synthetic genes to an organism, to create unique living beings)