The excess of meaning: developing an ethical attitude toward biological life through engaging with bioart

Abstract

Debates on biotechnological developments, such as genetic modification, stem cell research, and human-animal hybridity, show that we actually do not know how to deal with the unknown dimensions of biological life. Yet, boundary shifting biotechnological activities leave us no choice but to pursue a way to acknowledge these obscure domains. In this dissertation, I present concepts about how bioart allows for the development of an ethical attitude toward life. A discussion of critiques from Science and Technology Studies on the frameworks "principlism" and "empirical bioethics" show how bioethical practices of self-regulation and quantification fall short in thinking about life. The concept of "the excess of meaning of biological life” presents the idea that life is emergent, fluid, temporal, and consequential, and cannot be controlled or known, which is developed by discussing Georges Bataille's excess theory and Karen Barad's "agential realism” among other theories. Analyses of four bioartworks specify what form of knowledge art can generate about life, for which insights from art philosophy, new media studies, and risk theory are applied. I conclude that it is possible to take "absolute (ir)responsibility" for the excess of meaning of biological life in the personal “resonating” experience of a morally ambiguous artwork.