“Capitalist culture is deeply invested in the compulsory two-gendered, nuclear family system—not least because it guarantees maximum efficiency in the production and reproduction of labor power and the control of biopower.” This is a quote from SubRosa’s “Common knowledge and political love”.
The article “The Ethics of Experiential Engagement with the Manipulation of Life” by Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr talked about how many artists, social scientists or humanities scholars do not understand the complexities of life or biology enough, and assumes that biology = genetics. I was really surprised when I first read that because I always thought that people would think about animals when they think about biology, instead of genetics.
In my music industry class this past week, we had legendary songwriter Shelly Peiken come in to talk to us. Peiken has written various songs for Celine Dion, Selena Gomez, Christina Aguilera, and many others. There is no doubt that she is an extremely talented woman who deserves to be justly compensated for her work. But in her interview in our class, she brought up that because of streaming sites, the creative people behind the songs we love including the writers, demo singers, studio musicians, producers, and etc. are not being given what they rightfully deserve1.
During last week’s class, we got to hear about the fascinating ideas from the class about the ways that they can integrate art and biotechnology. The projects ranged from a communicative plant, to a breathing tracker, to applications involving the brain, DNA, and our responses to music. The wide range of projects was amazing to see, because I had never been able to fully grasp the range of possibilities in the world of the integration of biotechnology and art, even though we had many, many examples.
Larry Carbone’s, Animal Welfare in the laboratory A Case Study in Secular Ethics of Human-Animal Interaction, was a very intriguing read. Animal Welfare is a very sensitive topic and though it is talked about often, I feel like I haven’t read an approach to Animal Welfare similar to Larry Carbone’s. He breaks it down to what Animal Welfare essentially comes down too. He breaks down this complicated and complex issue and just gets straight to the key challenges.
With regard to hand sanitizer's slogan, "Imagine a touchable world," and many other company slogans at that, the Critical Art Ensemble dissects the common practice of using apocalyptic phrasing to tap into innate responses of people.
Whenever something goes wrong on a mass scale in a large population (e.g. school shootings, terrorist attacks, unqualified presidential candidates), there seems to be at least one person that asks the question "What is wrong with our society?" We're forced to look at ourselves critically as a species and as an individual and ultimately ask ourselves "Are we bad people?" which leads to more questions along the line "Are we inherently bad or were we just taught by society to be bad?"
Last week I proposed an open source digital archive of human remains for my midterm project and my peers in class opened up a discussion about the ethics of such an archive. What my peers expressed were concerns about religion and spirituality regarding the handling of human remains.
My idea for the midterm project is a mind drawing device which is capable of projecting the user’s mind into images and movies that basically reconstruct the scenes in his head. Mind-reading is not new. For many years, neuroscientists have tried to invent ways to decipher brain waves and translate the human thoughts into words. In early stages of mind-reading project development, scientists are just able to interpret a few brain cell firing signals into a few words. Lately, a huge improvement of the brain wave translation has been made.
Since the beginning of time, food has been considered one of the most valued elements by mankind. Along with water and oxygen, it is considered one of the bare necessities of life. While enjoyment and satisfaction are the first thoughts that comes minds when most people see a plate of food, this is fortunate feeling is often not the case for those who are constantly watching what they eat. And no, I am not referring to those who want to lose a couple of pounds for a slimmer and more attractive figure.
Food waste is a pressing issue globally. Annually, one-third of the world’s food supply is never consumed, and domestically, up to 40% of the crops grown in America is being thrown away due to consumption patterns. Consumers overbuy, throw away food prematurely due to confusing food labels, or do not finish the meal. During the holiday seasons, 30% of the grocery stores are being thrown away.
We’ve all felt heartbreak before. The uneasiness, nausea, confusion, emptiness, agonizing disbelief and well, physical pain, that comes along with breaking up. Close your eyes; imagine taking your long nails and dragging them down a chalkboard. Do you here the screeching? Do you feel yourself cringing?
Source: Google Images- Love lost
