Tactical Biopolitics Art, Activism, and Technoscience

by Da Costa, Beatriz; Philip, Kavita; Dumit, Joseph

• ISBN13: 9780262514910
• ISBN10: 0262514915
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-08-13
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

Popular culture in this "biological century" seems to feed on proliferating fears, anxieties, and hopes around the life sciences at a time when such basic concepts as scientific truth, race and gender identity, and the human itself are destabilized in the public eye. Tactical Biopoliticssuggests that the political challenges at the intersection of life, science, and art are best addressed through a combination of artistic intervention, critical theorizing, and reflective practices. Transcending disciplinary boundaries, contributions to this volume focus on the political significance of recent advances in the biological sciences and explore the possibility of public participation in scientific discourse, drawing on research and practice in art, biology, critical theory, anthropology, and cultural studies. After framing the subject in terms of both biology and art, Tactical Biopoliticsdiscusses such topics as race and genetics (with contributions from leading biologists Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins); feminist bioscience; the politics of scientific expertise; bioart and the public sphere (with an essay by artist Claire Pentecost); activism and public health (with an essay by Treatment Action Group co-founder Mark Harrington); biosecurity after 9/11 (with essays by artists' collective Critical Art Ensemble and anthropologist Paul Rabinow); and human-animal interaction (with a framing essay by cultural theorist Donna Haraway). Contributors: Gaymon Bennett, Larry Carbone, Karen Cardozo, Gary Cass, Beatriz da Costa, Oron Catts, Gabriella Coleman, Critical Art Ensemble, Gwen D'Arcangelis, Troy Duster, Donna Haraway, Mark Harrington, Jens Hauser, Kathy High, Fatimah Jackson, Gwyneth Jones, Jonathan King, Richard Levins, Richard Lewontin, Rachel Mayeri, Sherie McDonald, Claire Pentecost, Kavita Philip, Paul Rabinow, Banu Subramanian, subRosa, Abha Sur, Samir Sur, Jacqueline Stevens, Eugene Thacker, Paul Vanouse, Ionat Zurr.

Author Biography

Beatriz da Costa does interventionist art using computing and biotechnologies. She is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Irvine.

Kavita Philip studies colonialism, neoliberalism, and technoscience using history and critical theory. She is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Irvine.

Beatriz da Costa does interventionist art using computing and biotechnologies. She is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Irvine.

Kavita Philip studies colonialism, neoliberalism, and technoscience using history and critical theory. She is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Irvine.

Kavita Philip studies colonialism, neoliberalism, and technoscience using history and critical theory. She is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Irvine.

Eugene Thacker is Assistant Professor in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Beatriz da Costa does interventionist art using computing and biotechnologies. She is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Irvine.

Paul Rabinow is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley. His most recent books include Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (with Hubert Dreyfus) and The Foucault Reader.

Table of Contents

Series Foreword	p. ix
Foreword: Biological Feedback	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xv
Introduction	p. xvii
Theory and Practice: Biology as Ideology	p. 1
Interview with Richard Lewontin	p. 3
Living the Eleventh Thesis	p. 25
Interview with Richard Levins: On Philosophy of Science	p. 35
Life.science.art: Curating the Book of Life	p. 41
Biotech Patronage and the Making of Homo DNA	p. 43
Soft Science: Artists' Experiments in Documentary Storytelling	p. 63
Observations on an Art of Growing Interest	p. 83
Toward a Phenomenological Approach to Art Involving BiotechnologyJens Hauser (Curator and Media Studies Scholar)
The Biolab and the Public	p. 105
Outfitting the Laboratory of the Symbolic	p. 107
Toward a Critical Inventory of BioartClaire Pentecost (Artist and Public Amateur)
The Ethics of Experiential Engagement with the Manipulation of Life	p. 125
Labs Shut Open: A Biotech Hands-on Workshop for Artists	p. 143
Race and the Genome	p. 157
Selective Arrests, an Ever-Expanding DNA Forensic Database, and the Specter of an Early Twenty-First-Century Equivalent of Phrenology	p. 159
Discovering Nature, Apparently: Analogy, DNA Imaging, and the Latent Figure Protocol	p. 177
The Biopolitics of Human Genetics Research and Its Application
In Contradiction Lies the Hope: Human Genome and Identity Politics
Gendered Science	p. 219
Common Knowledge and Political Love	p. 221
Producing Transnational Knowledge, Neoliberal Identities, and Technoscientific Practice in India	p. 243
Genes, Genera, and Genres: The NatureCulture of BioFiction in Ruth Ozeki's All Over Creation	p. 269
True Life Science Fiction: Sexual Politics and the Lab Procedural	p. 289
Expertise and Amateur Science	p. 307
Uncommon Life	p. 309
AIDS Activists and People with AIDS: A Movement to Revolutionize Research and for Universal Access to Treatment	p. 323
The Politics of Rationality: Psychiatric Survivor's Challenge to Psychiatry	p. 341
Reaching the Limit: When Art Becomes Science	p. 365
Biosecurity and Bioethics	p. 387
From Bioethics to Human Practices, or Assembling Contemporary Equipment	p. 389
How Do We Insure Security from Perceived Biological Threats?	p. 401
Bioparanoia and the Culture of Control	p. 413
Critical Art Ensemble (ArtistÆs Collective)
Chinese Chickens, Ducks, Pigs, and Humans, and the Technoscientific Discourses of Global U.S. Empire	p. 429
Interspecies Co-Production	p. 443
Training in the Contact Zone: Power, Play, and Invention in the Sport of Agility	p. 445
Playing with Rats	p. 465
Animal Welfare in the Laboratory: A Case Study in Secular Ethics of Human-Animal Interaction	p. 479
Contributors	p. 487
Index	p. 489
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