An Experimental Public: Heterogeneous Groups Defining Embodiment in the Early Twenty-First Century. Issue 2 (24th October 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Laki, Julia
• Is Part Of: New bioethics. Volume 20:Issue 2(2014)
• Page Start: 109
• Page End: 123
• Publication Date: 2014-10-24
• Subjects: biosociality -- bio art -- the body -- embodiment -- biomedicine -- art -- science; Bioethics -- Periodicals; Medical genetics -- Moral and ethical aspects -- Periodicals; 174.2
• DOI: 10.1179/2050287714Z.00000000047
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2050-2877

Abstract

Abstract : In this paper, I take a look at certain forms of contemporary art as practices that allow meanings within biomedical science and medical practice to emerge in novel ways. I claim that conceptual art and biological art are two unique spaces within which the understanding of embodiment and disease comes to be shaped actively and reflexively, sometimes on the very level of the materiality of the body, sometimes through the articulation and representation of medical images and technologies. I link these developments to Paul Rabinow's notion of biosociality and argue that the molecularization and geneticization of the medical gaze, conjoined with certain social and cultural shifts, results in the formation of an experimental public of artists, scientists and laypeople, all invested in actively shaping the conceptualization of bodies and diseases. This will take me to a consideration of the intertwining of art and medicine beyond the domain of the visual.