Tute Presentation

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Speculative Fabulations for Technoculture's Generations: Taking Care of Unexpected Country By Donna Haraway

Patricia Piccinini is an Australian artist concerned with exploring the world that exists between technology and nature, creating works that are hard to define as either “living or non-living, organic or technological, promising or threatening”. Donna Haraway’s essay uses Piccinini’s art and Deborah Bird Rose’s reports of Australian Aboriginal “country” and the custodial role humans play in it, to ask about the responsibilities and accountabilities we have when creating the land she calls “technoculture”.

Haraway draws on particular pieces of Piccinini’s to illustrate her point- Still Life with Stem Cells, Young Family and a pair of Nature's Little Helpers: Bodyguard (for the Helmeted Honeyeater) and Surrogate (for the Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat).

Haraway reminds us of the species introduced into Australia by settlers, such as the cane toad and the dingo, and the “unexpected country” that arose from these introductions. Piccinini’s Nature’s Little Helper series are speculative introduced creatures designed to help care for species at risk, often at risk because of introduced species. The possibility of unexpected consequences arising from these creatures too is apparent.

Haraway suggests the best way to understand the technocultural landscape is in a non-linear time model consistent with Aboriginal practices and ideas, rather than the colonial idea of a past running directly, linearly, into a future. This “flourishing present” allows people to practice “ongoing and effective care that stays alert to many sorts of history.”

I have formulated a lot of questions about this, but divided them into 2 broad discussions, with the aim of stimulating talk rather than directly answering the questions I have posited.

1st discussion

Haraway’s and Piccinini’s ideas of caring for these results of technology are seductive, but are they realistic? Is it possible to look in this non-linear fashion, or to regard the byproducts of science as our charges, our responsibilities? Can you think of some current examples of “unexpected country” in regards to technological advances affecting people? Given our track record with current, existing byproducts, what is the likelihood we will recognise these outcomes as our responsibility?

Examples: The discarded embryos in IVF, the 26 “failed” embryos and 2 dead infant lambs that preceded Dolly the sheep, Thalidomide, corn fields being used for ethanol fuel instead of food.

2nd discussion

“Looking after imperfect, messy, really existing, mortal beings is much more demanding-not to mention playful, intellectually interesting, and emotionally satisfying-than living the futuristic nightmare of techno-immortality.”

When we have thought of cyborgs or technology thus far it has been more about a fusion of digital or metal with flesh, or sometimes replacing flesh. What are Piccinini and Haraway’s take on this? Does this reconcile with Haraway’s Manifesto?

Post script

It is interesting to note that images of The Young Family circulated via email after it’s first exhibition, often with the sensationalist title “Human-dog hybrid!” (or human-pig) and dire warnings of how scientists are operating without ethics, playing “God”. The scene of this evil laboratory is often placed in non-Western “other” places, like Africa, China, Israel. Websites posting this picture are accompanied by reader comments such as “gross”, “disgusting”, “sick”, “unsettling”, “disturbing”, “ugly” and “sad”. Why such emotional responses? Why did the circulation for what appears to be shock value, without the message Piccinini intended, go viral? What does this visceral response say about the way we view, or will view, imperfect results of technology? How does this relate to the way we view imperfect results of nature? Do humans really prefer the “messy” job of caring?