Art At The End Of The World: Bioart And Posthuman Ethics In The Anthropocene

Abstract

Bioart is a vital contemporary aesthetic movement that involves the use of animate matter (such as animal bodies or DNA) and is generative of productive encounters between theoretical methodologies of posthumanism, new materialism, and continental philosophy. I analyze this fruitful intersection of ideas in the context of the Anthropocene in order to excavate the possibility for a posthuman ethical encounter between the artist, the artwork, and the audience. I examine a wide variety of bioartworks by artists such as Eduardo Kac, Damien Hirst, and BCL; I also provide an in-depth analysis of synthetic biology and its productive potential within the frame of bioart. I ultimately argue that in order to be posthuman, bioart must also be humane, in the sense that in the Anthropocene we must be cognizant of the wide variety of potential material interactions that occur at the site of a bioartistic practice. I also contend that we must reconcile the absolute alterity of the bioartistic material with the need for an ethics that is enfleshed and entrenched within the material intra-active becomings of the world.