"...Because Eduardo Kac is an artist and not a political activist, the event he realized at Casa das Rosas remains open to multiple interpretations. One can read the implant as a warning about forms of human surveillance and control that might be adopted in the near future. The Brazilian press approached the event mostly from this point of view. The scenario evoked is that a microchip implanted in our body from birth could become our only form of identification. Whenever we needed to be identified we would be scanned, and immediately a databank would show records revealing who we are, what we do, what kinds of products we consume, if we are in debt with to Internal Revenue Service, if we are facing criminal charges, or if we are hiding from the judicial system.
However, one can also read Kac's work from another perspective, as a sign of a biological mutation that might eventually take place, when digital memories will be implanted in our bodies to complement or substitute for our own memories. This reading is clearly authorized by the associations the artist makes between the implant of a numerical memory in his own body and the public exhibition of his familial memories, his external memories materialized in the form of photographs of his ancestors. These images, which strangely contextualize the event, allude to deceased individuals whom the artist never had the chance to meet, but who were responsible for the "implantation" in his body of the genetic traces he has carried from childhood and that he will carry until his death. Will we in the future still carry these traces with us irreversibly or will we be able to replace them with artificial genetic traces or implanted memories? Will we still be black, white, mulatto, Indian, Brazilian, Polish, Jewish, female, male, or will we buy some of these traces at a shopping mall? In this case, will it make any sense to speak of family, race, nationality? Will we have a past, a history, an "identity" to be preserved?...", in "A MICROCHIP INSIDE THE BODY" de Arlindo Machado : http://ekac.org/amach.html
Raul Rabaça
However, one can also read Kac's work from another perspective, as a sign of a biological mutation that might eventually take place, when digital memories will be implanted in our bodies to complement or substitute for our own memories. This reading is clearly authorized by the associations the artist makes between the implant of a numerical memory in his own body and the public exhibition of his familial memories, his external memories materialized in the form of photographs of his ancestors. These images, which strangely contextualize the event, allude to deceased individuals whom the artist never had the chance to meet, but who were responsible for the "implantation" in his body of the genetic traces he has carried from childhood and that he will carry until his death. Will we in the future still carry these traces with us irreversibly or will we be able to replace them with artificial genetic traces or implanted memories? Will we still be black, white, mulatto, Indian, Brazilian, Polish, Jewish, female, male, or will we buy some of these traces at a shopping mall? In this case, will it make any sense to speak of family, race, nationality? Will we have a past, a history, an "identity" to be preserved?...", in "A MICROCHIP INSIDE THE BODY" de Arlindo Machado : http://ekac.org/amach.html
Raul Rabaça
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário