Abstract (Short paper)

Keywords: Toxicity, biotechnology, biopolitics, Foucault, Heidegger, bio art, phenomenology, Enframing, bio-society, apparatus.

The paper looks into how “Toxicity” entrenches itself into what Phenomenology sees as the co-constitution of society and technology. The cultural deciphering of the toxic societal terrain resonates with current socio-economic global transformations. The topic of toxicity reconstructs the current environmental situation and socio-political contexts by looking into modes of contemporary cultural and technological production. Biopolitics maintains an extended role today by shaping life and attaining central role in society. It adds a complexity of layers that allows radical reconstruction of relations between politics and nature, allowing for a reassessment of how we look at life today. The trajectory of development of Biopolitics is altered, for life appears not to be what we have originally assumed that it was, and therefore its regulation cannot continue under previously granted premises. The dualities of power and right, sovereignty and law, do not leave the contemporary Biopolitical discourses for a minute. The Bio-political characteristics of Toxicity are seen by some in line with eugenics, as the toxins will most certainly lead to sterility of the indigenous population, and are to be seen in correlation with the degenerative pathology of the prevailing illnesses such as alcoholism, STDs, obesity, diabetes, cancer, etc.

• Dr. Melentie Pandilovski, Video Pool Media Arts Centre Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. I am a media art theorist/historian, curator, and critic. I work as Director of Video Pool Media Arts Centre in Winnipeg, Canada. I have curated more than 150 exhibitions and organized numerous symposia, conferences, and workshops, in Europe, Australia, and Canada, such as: “SEAFair” (Skopje Electronic Art Fair) in the period 1997 – 2011; “Toxicity” in 2013-14, and “Marshall McLuhan & Vilém Flusser Communication & Aesthetics Theories Revisited”, in Winnipeg, Canada in 2012; “Biotech Art – Revisited” in Adelaide, South Australia in 2009, etc. My theoretical research deals with examination of the links between art, culture, technology, individual identity, and consciousness. Consultant editor of Artlink’s “Bio Art: Life in the Anthropocene” (2014); Editor of “Energy, Biopolitics, Resistance Strategies and Cultural Subversion” (2012), “The Apparatus of Life and Death” (2012), “Art in the Biotech Era” (2008). My publications include: “How biotechnology and society co-constitute each other”, Technoetic Arts Journal, Intellect Ltd. 2012; “On Modes of Consciousness(es) and Electronic Culture”, In Glimpse, Phenomenology and Media, San Diego, California, 2000, “The Position of Culture in Southeast Europe” (2000), “Consciousness and Electronic Culture”, In Consciousness Reframed (Catalogue of 4th International CAiiA-STAR Research Conference) (Perth 2002), “The Apparatus of Life and Death” (2010) and “Energy, Biopolitics, Resistance Strategies and Cultural Subversion, Skopje, Macedonia (2011); etc. I haves worked on numerous projects with the “Syndicate” – international network. My artistic projects include the Internet project “Welcome Back to the Empire” (1996-7, and 2011), the solo exhibition “TV Experiment” in Skopje, Macedonia, in 1987, and a project with-in “Tik- Tak –Tok”, an international inter-disciplinary collaboration consisting of two exhibitions of artists’ clocks and time machines, in Dundee (Scotland) and Skopje (Republic of Macedonia) in 2000 and 2002. videopool.org

Full text (PDF) p. 414-417