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  • Transductive Praxis in Bioart
  • Tyler Fox

In this dissertation, the author uses the philosophy of Gilbert Simondon to form a theoretical framework for making BioArt. BioArt, for this research, means artwork that incorporates living, nonhuman organisms. Simondon adopts a relational ontology to argue that individuation, or how things come to be, is ongoing and processual. His philosophy provides an understanding of the relations between entities, between individuals and their sustaining environments. Simondon argues that his philosophy is generalizable across all regimes of existence (physical, living, technological, psychosocial) but specific to the context of a given set of relations. Simondon offers critical concepts for the consideration and creation of BioArt, especially techno-aesthetics. The author uses Simondon’s techno-aesthetics to build a method and approach to creating BioArt. This dissertation eschews an understanding of BioArt that emphasizes only the practices, tools and processes from the biotechnology industry as the underlying requirement of the genre. Rather than limiting people’s understanding of what BioArt is, the author argues for an opening up of the understanding of what BioArt can be: a research path that brings relations between humans, technology and living, nonhuman organisms to the fore. This research seeks to understand how BioArt can foster shared experiences between humans and nonhumans. This dissertation discusses the development of two different projects, one in the final stage and one in the nascent stage. Each offers both physical instantiations of the theories and arguments of the research, as well as objects of analysis through which the author explores and expands upon Simondon’s philosophy.


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Tyler Fox, Biolesce 0.5, interactive installation: P. fusiformis, seawater, button motors, heartbeat sensor, Arduino Uno, 2015.

(© Tyler Fox)

[End Page 526]

Tyler Fox
<foxt@uw.edu>. PhD thesis, Simon Fraser University, Canada, 2015.
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