Diversity and Eduardo Kac

All I can say is... wow. I'm a mixture of shocked and intrigued. I don't really know what to say. Before now, I have never heard of transgenic art. Or maybe it's because what Eduardo Kac does is not considered "art" by mainstream standards. I'd never really thought about making art with genetics as your medium. But it makes sense - it makes sense that this can be called art, and it makes sense because in their own ways, artists are used to playing God.

Um, I don't really know where I stand on the issue of biodiversity and the degradation of species. I didn't really consider diversity of this kind. Probably because I don't feel completely informed on what's going on and thus I can't take a stance or formulate a concrete opinion. I don't know, its really hard to draw a line and say that this is where humans can't cross. Because obviously, me included, a lot of us know there needs to be a control over this whole genetic engineering issue.. but at the same time, it's going to take a while to come close to agreeing on what kind of control is necessary. We're frighteningly too close to being able to decide what is usually decided by the natural course of things (but who is to say that us doing so isn't a natural course?).

As far as art goes, what Eduardo Kac did is pretty... revolutionary, controversial, new, interesting... kind of what a lot of important art has always been. At this point in time (or I guess always) in art history, radical (I use this word kind of loosely) statements and actions are the only kinds that make any sort of difference. I don't want to say I support what he did or even that I enjoy the idea, but I definitely appreciate its artistic value and merit as a conceptual idea and process.

Hmmm.