HR Giger und seine Kunst des hybriden Enhancements (original) (raw)
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Dissecting the Classical Hybrid
This chapter focuses on the anatomy of the classical hybrid, and its relationship to (whole) human and animal bodies. Both ancient and modern sources describe hybrid anatomies in the positive terms of construction and creation, of grafting and fusion. However, in this chapter I draw attention to a parallel tradition, which experiments with the theme of deconstruction, of disaggregation. The material introduced shows how ancient authors and artists often chose to highlight the instability of the hybrid body, by distributing its parts across the surface of an object, or through the lines of a written text. Once this trend has been established, I move on to explore the implications of this shift in emphasis – from construction to deconstruction – for how we see ancient hybrids functioning in their environment. Working from the insistent connection made in ancient thought between animality and fragmentation, I suggest that the hybrid’s ‘partible’ body can be seen to challenge the cultural as well as the biological boundaries that separated humans and animals in the Graeco-Roman world. The idea that the form of hybrid bodies reflects broader discourses about human-animal relations in a particular historical context is reinforced by looking at hybrid images from the 21st century, whose anatomies are radically different from those of their classical ‘ancestors’.
"Two exhibition projects in Germany have recently contributed to research in the field of ancient metal statuary. The larger project, Gebrochener Glanz, focused on metal statuary from the northern Limes Romanus, i.e., the frontier and other provincial towns of the Roman Empire. In addition to exhibitions in Bonn, Aalen and Nijmegen, a catalogue was published. Several researchers from this project took part in the later project (p. 15), entitled the Gegossene Götter, which examined Ancient Egyptian bronze statuary from the 1st Millennium BC.2 Six German museums took part: Ägyptisches Museum der Universität Bonn, Museum-August-Kestner in Hannover, Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim, Ägyptisches Museum - Georg Steindorff - der Universität Leipzig, Herzogliches Museum in Gotha and Goethe-Nationalmuseum in Weimar. Apart from exhibitions in Bonn, Hannover, Gotha and Leipzig, a catalogue was published, which is the subject of the current review."
In this paper I explore the influence of ‘Wet Biology’ and Hybrid Arts practices on the development of my installation-based performance work BioHome: The Chromosome Knitting Project. This work has been developed as part of my recentl;y completed Doctorate of Creative Arts (DC.A) at the University of Wollongong. ‘Wet Biology’ is the term currently used for working with live plants or cells in experimental contexts. It includes genetic modification of organisms and cell culturing. Hybrid Arts, as I define them, involve the incorporation of new technologies into the traditional creative art forms, as well as hybridising/ cross-fertilisation of art forms through creative partnerships with industry, science and other knowledge bases, such as critical theory. At the moment there is a rapid hybridisation and evolution taking place in digital technologies and biotechnologies. For example digital forms allow communication and cross-fertilisation between radio and web-based formats, computers, radio and mobile phones, while biotech and Life Science industries are developing biological modifications and hybrids to respond to commercial markets. Artists who cross fertilise with these technologies can create hybrids and mutations of traditional forms. To use a Darwinian metaphor, some of these digital, creative and biological products may become strong enough to survive and possibly form new varieties, or where successful, new species of program formats and performance forms. This paper documents my experience working with contemporary Wet Biology techniques including D.N.A. extraction, cell culturing and genetic modification of organisms during the research and development stages of the performance and how the influence of the scientific practices and notions of hybridity, evolution and mutation have influenced the form, content and processes of my work. The key topics I investigate for the purposes of this paper include, first, that the message does respond to the medium: new biotechnologies can inform creative processes; and, second, that the biological metaphors of evolution, hybridity and mutation are relevant to the development of hybrid performance. works.