Aesthetics of creating a postnatural world : science and art for a Pseudo Utopia

Abstract

Along with the rapid development of technology and scientific in(ter)vention working towards the betterment of the human race, utopian ideas of the future are prevalent in contemporary society. However, as an artist, I question to what extent progress contributes to improving our lives on the planet. More specifically, how the scientific manipulation of living material (human, animal, and plant life) may evolve given its human-centred exploration. Living matter is steadily extracted from its natural context and then engineered based on the amelioration of life. However, postnatural, and the attendant sense of alienation and dislocation this may evoke, could work instead towards the disintegration of life on earth. At the intersection of art and science, I consider the role of biotechnology in society and, more specifically, how artists may contribute to raising awareness of the potential future these developments may hold. In this paper and the accompanying series of artworks, I focus on humanity’s embroiled relationship with nature by considering how an artist may ‘inset’ life into new postnatural contexts to allow the viewer to share the implications and responsibilities of human intervention in the environment. This research aims to uncover some of the aesthetic and affective strategies employed by artists to engage various subject positions in a postnatural world. Conducted from a Visual Arts perspective alongside the University of Pretoria’s Institute for Sustainable Malaria Control (UP ISMC) in the Faculty Health Sciences, I interrogate the relationship between malaria, the use of harmful dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) pesticides, as well as their toxic long-term genetic consequences for both human and animal species.