Comments on: Biowriting

by: kamper

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:28:26 +0000

Thanks for this, Mark. Funny, but I actually wrote this article as a long lead-in to a piece I was running in a few days on using critical code studies to consider Kac’s “Move 36.” However I wasn’t familiar with his work in general, and I hadn’t seen “Biopoetry” - it is an excellent article, and I wish I had read it first!

by: Natasha Vita-More

Sun, 14 Jan 2007 21:20:06 +0000

BioText is new to me, and I suppose this is what I have been doing, in large part, for some time now. I have written about the sciences and technologies for extending human life as essential ingredients for “Transhuman Art” or “TransBioTech Art”.

But this does not exclude me from actually having participated as a BioArt artist, since I have used my own body and mind in my practice for two decades for the purposes of slowing down aging and toward extending my lifespan. Cryonics is just one element, and I cannot prove that or even experiment with it yet - it is far too dangerous and nanotechnologies, such as nanomedicine and nanorobotics is not available.

But I can still conceptualize my ideas about life extension and write about it. But BioText simply doesn’t fit the bill. I am an “artist” first and foremost, a writer second.

But thank you for providing me with some insights into this expanding field.

by: Jeremy Douglass

Tue, 24 Jan 2006 20:00:59 +0000

Eduardo Kac has a new book out, Telepresence and Biowriting, which has been added to our library list.

by: Mark Marino

Tue, 04 Oct 2005 23:31:12 +0000

I agree with you about the novelty aspect. Kac’s are provocations, though I do think he has a sustained interest in the relationship between technology, culture, and creativity, perhaps most grotesquely and materially illustrated by his bunny.

I also like this point about biowriting and am interested to see how these ideas play out. Kudos.

by: Jeremy Douglass

Tue, 04 Oct 2005 22:49:07 +0000

I love the evocative imagination of biopoetry, but what I don’t like about using the term (as opposed to biowriting) is that it tends to present bio- techniques as short aesthetic novelties, rather sustained discourses such as stories, novels, dialogs, etc. If we transcribe “The Lady, or the Tiger?” into DNA, or spell out the Bill of Rights in naked human bodies, is that biopoetry? Or is it biowriting?