Digital Biology
Donna Haraway et Bruno Latour
In the contemporary landscape of art and critical theory, concepts of digital biology, as explored by Donna Haraway and Bruno Latour, open new perspectives on the hybrid and rhizomatic nature of our modern existence, intertwining the real and the virtual in an ever-increasing complexity.
Donna Haraway, a feminist and science theorist, introduced the concept of the cyborg as a powerful metaphor for understanding the relationships between humans and technology. In her famous essay A Cyborg Manifesto [1], she explores how technological advancements, particularly in the fields of biology and computer science, transform our understanding of identity, the body, and society. For Haraway, the cyborg embodies a fusion of the organic and the technological, a hybrid entity that defies traditional categories and challenges the boundaries between nature and culture.
Bruno Latour, a sociologist and philosopher of science, develops the actor-network theory [2] to examine how networks of human and non-human actors interact to create complex realities. For Latour, digital technologies are not merely passive tools but active agents in the construction of the social world. He explores how technical objects, algorithms, and data participate in the co-constitution of modern societies, influencing our perceptions and daily practices.
The notion of digital biology encapsulates the idea that our contemporary lives are increasingly shaped by interactions between biological and digital systems. It is a domain where binary codes (0 and 1) blend with organic complexity (A and B), creating rhizomatic networks of interconnection and interdependence. This approach transcends traditional dichotomies of art and technology, inviting us to rethink life and art within a continuum where materiality and virtuality merge.
Through digital biology, contemporary artworks explore the fluid boundaries between the biological body and its technological extensions. From interactive installations to generative works, artists question the ethical and philosophical implications of this fusion, while offering new aesthetic and sensory experiences that challenge our relationship to nature, the machine, and the other.
In conclusion, digital biology according to Haraway and Latour reveals a theoretical and artistic landscape where the distinctions between the organic and the digital dissolve, giving way to a fertile exploration of the possibilities and limits of the augmented human (See: My old Memory). It is within this dynamic of rhizomatic hybridity that the future of contemporary art is shaped, fueled by a continuous reflection on the nature of existence in an increasingly digital world.
[1] HARAWAY Donna, A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century, in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, p149–181, 1991 New York: Routledge, New York: Routledge.
[2] LATOUR Bruno, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, 2005, Oxford: Oxford University Press.