Biotech: Life by Contagion  

Oleh:

Parisi, Luciana

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Theory, Culture & Society vol. 24 no. 6 (Nov. 2007), page 29-52.
Topik: bacterial sex ¦ machinic nature ¦ virtual matter
Fulltext: 29.pdf (176.74KB)

Isi artikel

This article will discuss recent developments in genetic engineering in relation to nonlinear dynamics of evolution such as endosymbiosis, re-theorized by Lynn Margulis in the 1970s. These dynamics contribute to mapping the nonlinear processes of information transmission that have come to define life beyond inert and entropic matter. As Margulis argues, genetic engineering does not simply manipulate life. Rather, it takes as its model the symbiotic trading of information between bacteria (non-nucleated cells that do not reproduce through sexual mating). In other words, she points out, bacteria invented the genetic engineering of cellular bodies across species barriers 3900 million years ago. In this sense, genetic engineering marks the re-emergence of a new (but ancient) mode of sex and reproduction, bacterial sex. Such re-emergence, far from defining an imitation of bacteria, points to a new modulation of life: the acceleration of the variables of life or the emerging mutations of matter. Challenging the Darwinian and neo-Darwinian models of evolution (the arborescent line of genetic descent), the molecular sciences and technologies of genetic engineering (i.e. endosymbiosis) contribute to redefining life as a turbulent auto-catalytic assembly of bacterial colonies. Drawing on Bergson’s creative evolution and Deleuze and Guattari’s machinic nature, the article will lay out the asymmetric relation between emergent dynamics of engineered life and what they emerge from (virtual matter).

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