[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> DNA 'bomb' digest [kurtz, wilding]

[lagadu@altern.org]

Bis repetita, one word was missing.

Hi !

Hmmm sorry but as a french speakin person I have difficulties understanding
(litterally speaking) the term "ethics-schmetics". Can someone provide some
translation ?

Meanwhile, I will say my word :  the ethicist position is not challenging the
real issues of privatization of knowledge and knowhows ressources which are at
stake in biotech and infotech-software patents, that is an evident capitalist
issue. It is just shadowing it and playing for the team it is supposed to oppose.

Same with the Biodiversity Convention, which pretends to protect the ressources
by giving them a public property status, and as such implies that they can be
negociated for what they are : merchandise. At the same time the Convention does
not even acknowledges the idea of a "commun humanity patrimony" that would saty
free, as free-software is free.

So yes biotech-art is a provocation to thought, is a way to drag peoples's
attention to the preposterous  issues of patenting (not only biotech). And how do

you drag attention today, if don't use the spectacle and play the game of excess
and outrage ?

Some will say that the game is dangerous because it propagates dangerous ideas
(some people could ffel like doing this bio-bullet). This is bullshit, because
the ideas are there, in the industrial and military camp who already work on such

weapons. Underlying the potential dangers of a proliferation of eco-terrorism,
makes me think they are already in the process of limiting  the  liberty
"expression" (research, creation etc) of non-professionnals, and weaving another
net of prohibiting laws, eavesdropping capabilities and budgets for intelligence
services.

Cheers

Chris

nettime's_lamarckian wrote:



nettime's_lamarckian wrote:

>
>
> You misunderstand me. Ethics as a spectacular _discipline_ is founded on
> capitalist ideology. I am sure you have heard bioethicists speak at one
> point or another. From CAE~s experience, the assumptions of these
> specialists are that market economy is good, god bless western society,
> so what is of value for the western  bourgeois subject? The ethicists
> subject position is not even spoken because it is such a given. Instead,
> there is generally a pretense of ambivilence and multiplicity, but it is
> only the ambivilence arising from limited diversity that can be found
> _within_ bourgeois culture. It~s to this discourse that Natalie was
> saying ~ethics, schmethics.~ She was not saying that its fine to
> surrender critical thinking, social responsibility, or personal
> accountability.
>
> --CAE
>
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> Date: Fri, 18 May 2001 14:05:40 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Faith Wilding <fwild+@andrew.cmu.edu>
> Subject: DNA bombs
>
> scott:
> >> And of course all agricultural crops and animals
> > > >are 'GM' by virtue of selective breeding anyway.
>
> this is not correct really. Bioengineered genetic modification is quite
> different than selective breeding. For one thing it is much quicker. For
> another, you can recombine DNA from different species in a way you can't
> with hybridization and selective breeding.
>
> Yesterday I had lunch at a new biotech venture firm which prides itself
> on not being venture capitalist but rather a venture catalyst--"where
> life and computing converge." They are making it possible for professors
> from universities which retain the rights to their faculties' research
> results to team up with entrepreneurs, doctors, and independent
> laboratories, in order to bring their inventions to market. Their main
> thrust is of course the altruistic one of "human healing." We have seen
> the birth of the bio/medical/military industrial complex and it is
> powerful and ugly. This is driving what gets developed as consumer and
> industrial biotech far more than any ethical or intellectual discussion.
> I agree with Natalie Jeremijenko-- ethics-schmethics. Everybody is
> waiting for the ethicists to pronounce (how do ethicists establish and
> maintain their authority?). This lets entrepreneurs and the general
> public off the hook of taking any responsibility to find out much on
> their own. The call for tighter monitoring of biotech research from
> scientists is also largely bogus. Who is to do the monitoring? Who is to
> enforce results of that monitoring? How can we even know who those
> monitors are and what their motives are?
>
> The biotech firm I visited was puzzled by the fact that the announcement
> of the  mapping of the Human Genome last summer had evoked so little
> interest or response in America. "We thought it would be a hot-button
> issue" they said, "we thought people would be picketing our offices."
> Ha! America loves science and science loves America. Most folks don't
> have a clue as to how the science or the economics of biotech work. They
> have a vague notion that scary things are happening, but feel powerless
> to grapple with it in the face of the juggernaut capitalist consumer
> industry beginning to market biotech. They rest hopefully on the
> assumption that scientists will do what is best for us and that the
> government will make sure everything is safe. Meanwhile the fertility
> industry in Assisted Reproductive Technologies is unregulated by the
> government,and GM food does not have to be labeled as such.
>
> Ignorance is bliss and it is easier not to face and understand the roots
> of our fears. Activist artists who are taking on these issues are often
> accused of doing the same bad deeds that the corporations are doing. But
> this is a misunderstanding of much of this work. The point is that many
> of the projects show people WHAT is being done and HOW it is being done,
> and how it is being driven economically and ideologically. It makes
> visible so much that is now totally invisible or so naturalized that it
> is opaque. It is important to keep stressing (especially to biotech
> artists) that artists must work critically with the spectacle and with
> representation and ideology. In my biotech art work with subRosa and
> with Critical Art Ensemble I have experienced how important it is for
> artists (amateurs) to be engaging people in this discourse. People
> approach it in a whole different manner than when they are confronted
> with "experts" or the "authorities." Let's keep the pressure up on
> theorizing and building critical practices around the biogenetic
> disturbance. Then trampling down some GM corn will soon seem like small
> (Monsanto) potatoes.
> Faith Wilding
>
>
> cheerios, Faith
>
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