Otocron
all things highly in-betweenArchive for February, 2010
Opening speech of the TransNatural exhibition
Mail clients are the new Galapagos islands. The struggle-for-life between spambots and spamfilters demonstrates again Darwins intuition, and this time we are there to watch it happen. …
There is no reason to assume that people in, say, 50 years, will still have to stick to this body plan, or one like it.
And if the convergence between nanotech, biotech, and infotech really builds a head of steam, some of us may live to plant a tree in their garden on which grows something that tastes of chicken, as well as a paperthin rollable widescreen television.
But all that is NOT the point.
The point is that worried mothers learn to believe, online, that nanochips are mixed into the H1N1 vaccination, and THAT is the reason they don’t want their kids to get an injection. (note: there may be other good reasons to not go for the injection, but this is a stupid one) The point is that many people guiltily believed that the tsunami of christmas 2004 was natures revenge on the humans that are thrashing the planet. The point is that economy and ecology should be two versions of the same story – but somehow they are caught up is a fatal zero-sum game.
The TransNatural project, of which this exhibition is the first move, tries to explore elements of a new narrative about the relation between nature and techology, and also tries to adress some practical means that would justify such a narrative.
The idea TransNatural wants to lightly step over the essential anatagonism, deeply rooted in mythology, between nature and technology. TransNatural is an exploration of possibilites towards reconciliation, in objects, images, poetics, processes and technologies.
The TransNatural, in this sense, is a space we haven’t really entered yet. We’re sidetracked by dystopian variants (Grey Goo, genetically enhanced supersoldiers going rogue, not to mention Frankenstein) But along the dystopian track we end up with the same old classical battle between good (nature) and evil (technology, ok it’s cool as well, but hardly ever harmless) And we have to get rid of that story if we want to make it with our biosphere, because the problem is: if nature wins, humans loose everything. (think of 2012 the movie, and WaterWorld) But if technology wins, humans loose everything too. (the Matrix, Ray Kurzweills Singularity)
So, what is and what isn’t TransNatural ?
Bio-art itself isn’t, but Eduardo Zac (how made Alba, the fluorescent rabbit) is. Adam Zaretsky isn’t, with his attempts at two headed zebra-fish. Tobie Kerridges Biojewellery is, Guerilla Gardening isn’t (that’s still a war after all) Hundertwasser isn’t. But Cradle-to-Cradle and Grave-to-Cradle is. And Rachel Armstrongs’ Living Architecture is.
The Cyborg isnt -Robocop, the Borg, half human meat, half stainless steel, and always war between the two halves. But the Nexus 6 from Blade Runner is.
Yes, nature was always complete, but also it is never finished. This could be naive utopism if it wasn’t also a pragmatic need. TransNatural is meant as a gesture of reconciliation. And whatever it is, we think it an interesting position.
Klaas Kuitenbrouwer – 19 02 2010
A new iteration
In a couple of weeks I’ll have a class of MaHKU students studying editorial design. For this class I’ve further developed an assignment that I also gave to my DOGtime- unstable media students. The assignment was about relational design, and the students have been creating organisations. The new iteration of the assignment is published at the page Organisation assignment, under Pages.
