[Nettime-bold] DNA bombs

[Faith Wilding <fwild+@andrew.cmu.edu>]

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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