Embodied
and Embedded Visions
The Nineteenth Annual Conference of the
Society for Literature, Science, and the
Arts SLSA
Chicago, IL, November 10-13, 2005
Reviewed by Simone Osthoff
With the title Emergent Systems, Cognitive
Environments, the SLSA 2005 conference
brought together this past fall in Chicago
about 260 participants among scientists,
artists, and scholars. Organized by Joseph
Tabbi of the University of Illinois at
Chicago, the conference plenary speaker
was Dr. Gerald Edelman, a neuroscientist
and Nobel Prize winner. The keynote artists
were Eduardo Kac, Warren Neidich, Allison
Hunter, Eve Andrée Laramée,
Daniel Wenk, and Zane Berzina. Among prominent
critics were Cary Wolfe, Barbara Stafford,
Katherine Hayles, Linda Dalrymple Henderson,
and W.J.T. Mitchell.
Beyond the panel presentations which ran
on seven parallel streams, the conference
converged in three large forums: The first
was the Friday evening plenary in which
Dr. Gerald Edelman delivered an engaging
and informative lecture about the relations
between the brain and the mind with poignant
philosophical insights and witty jokes.
The second large event of the conference
was the Cognitive Forum on Saturday afternoon
in which the different perspectives on
the conferences themes came together
in a panel discussion that included most
of the SLSA 2005 plenary speakers. The
third all-inclusive event was the Saturday
evening plenary with an exchange between
keynote artist Eduardo Kac and scholar/theorist
Cary Wolfe.
The plenary lecture by Dr. Edelman reaffirmed
the multidisciplinary nature of the conference
by probing questions such as "What
is the basis of perception? How does memory
work? Can we account for consciousness
by analyzing brain function?" Dr.
Edelman examined the relationship between
biology and psychology, between the brain
and the mind, matter and imagination,
as they are shaped by, and respond to
different environmental systems"the
brain is embodied and the body is embedded."
A wide variety of artistic explorations
and theorization revolved around the concepts
of sensation, perception, and memory (no
longer in the sense of a Freudian idea
of perceptual memory, stored and waiting
to be dug). Themes in the visual arts
ranged from more traditional tropes also
shared with literature, such as notions
of the double, shadows, alter-egos, and
other surrogate selves, to perceptual
questions about vision and visualization,
in which themes of fragmentation and embodied
and disembodied vision were never far
apart. Among such explorations were the
psychopharmacologies of the brainfrom
consciousness altering drugs to depression,
disease, exhaustion, and the bodys
response to the environmentthe visualization
of travels within the mind and the body,
as well as the transformative power of
new materials and optical technologies.
The invisible aspects of these technologies
were also present, in examinations of
network ecologies, biotechnology, and
nanobots, as well as their relationships
to the brain, the mind, and the environment.
Amongst the sections that explored a pharmacology
of the mind, was "Psychedelic Science"
organized by Richard Doyle, which addressed
expanded states of consciousness and their
visualization. Doyle described psychedelic
experiences with ayahuasca, an hallucinogenic
brew from the Amazon region, asking "how
to do psychedelic science? What would
the institute of psychedelic science be
like?" Observing that the theme,
despite at least 150 years of literature
on psychedelic experience of altered states
and expanded cognitive capacities, continues
to be difficult to explore, because the
subject is still persecuted, illegal,
and taboo, he examined the differences
between drugs and medicine in how a drug
connects the brain in the process by telling
the mind how to heal. Other presenters
in the panel such as Diana Slattery and
Robert Yarber offered a rich variety of
examples and approaches to visualization
of ecstatic experiences.
Also exploring body-mind connections,
yet extending its metaphors to the social-political
body, was W.J.T. Mitchells section
"Inside and Outside the Body"
in which he discussed the immune system
(the virus and defense mechanisms remembers
and recognizes a foreign body) and of
the nervous system (the media as the global
nervous system) in terms of social and
political-military analogies. In this
panel Kiki Benzon presented the paper
"Psychopharmacology and the brain"
examining relationships between psychiatric
disorders and creativity"artists
work to get out of hell." Using quantitative
and qualitative data she examined liminal
states between the social and the biological
while addressing questions such as: Is
depression a scopic regime? How do drugs
affect what is produced by artists?
Artist and visual theorist Warren Neidich,
who organized the Neuroaesthetics conference
in London in May 2005, presented a section
with art historian and critic Barbara
Maria Stafford. Neidich brings attention
to how photography, film, and the mass
media implicate consciousness and conceptions
of history, while also incite new artistic
experimentation. Neidich coined the term
neuroaesthetics in 1995 and has been exploring
the areas of neuroscience in his photographs
and video work since then. The combination
of knowledge of neurobiology with art
is rare and for Neidich it has been a
very productive one, both aesthetically
and theoretically. Observing how our mutating,
dynamic and changing world sculpts the
brain, "as the world changes so to
does the neurobiological architecture,"
he also pointed to the ethical dimensions
of art mentioning the possibility of creative
revolutions and of a new sense of self
shaped out of networks of texts/images.
For him, the importance
of art in larger bio-political contexts
should not be overlooked.
In dialogue with Neidichs discussion
of the disjunction and the instability
of cognition (against the artificiality
of smooth narrative constructs), Barbara
Stafford argued that theories of representation
and narrative need to be rethought in
terms of episodic manuevering. In opposition
to the smoothing of cinematic narrative,
for instance, she proposed the tradition
of the mosaic and of the emblem, which
brings discrete elements together, also
highlighting the history of caricature,
especially in the work of Daumier, but
also in Seurats compositions, Hannah
Hochs collages, and in Goyas
Caprichos (concealed images within
the prints shadow patterns). From
the audience Joe Tabbi observed that cognitive
theory is comfortable with the notions
of unity and variety in ways that literature
is not, often creating a sense of self
out of fragments. Also from the audience,
W.J.T. Mitchell pointed to the connection
between caricature and stereotypes and
the discussion that followed explored
issues of collective memory, social and
collective cognition in response to the
question: how does one work across the
individual and the collective?
Among the many questions raised throughout
the three-day conference were those concerning
the history of art, and in particular
of the history of art since the 1960s.
An example was "The House of Dust:
Origins of Computer Music, Poetry and
Art" organized by Hannah Higgins
and Douglas Kahn. This section brought
together two generations of artists and
scholars. The artists, James Tenney and
Alison Knowles were among the first to
work with computers in the early 1960s
in New York. Tenney and Knowles talked
about serendipity, synchronicity and the
openness to explore uncharted territory
during the period between 1958 and 1962,
which emphasized a collective creativity
lead by the example of John Cage and other
counterculture artists who valued collaborations,
communities, mail art, Fluxus intermedia
practices, friendship and networks operating
outside financial and profit interests.
This panel combined the witness testimony
of oral history with scholarly analysis
grounded in poststructuralist theory.
The large Cognitive Forum on Saturday
afternoon included besides the conference
host Joseph Tabbi, Dr. Gerald Edelman,
scholars Barbara Maria Stafford, Cary
Wolfe, Katherine Hayles, and artists Warren
Neidich, Alison Knowles and James Tenney.
Joe Tabbi began the session with a brief
overview of the themes cognition
and emergence pointing to the convergences
and possible contentions in the conference
up to that point. Given the caliber of
the panel, the interest of the colleagues
in the audience, and the urgency of the
multiple questions, the forum discussion
could have easily continued for the rest
of the afternoon.
The last large forum was the Saturday
evening plenary in which keynotes Eduardo
Kac and Cary Wolf explored the challenges
and complexities posed by non-human forms
of life in different experiences and modalities
of perception. With witty, humor, and
a lively performance Kac examined the
creation of his GFP Bunny project
along with the global media controversy
generated by its reception, while Wolfe
delivered an in-depth analysis of Kacs
works making reference to further transgenic
and telepresence works by the artist.
Examining particular representational
strategies and ethical positions in contemporary
art in relation to animals, Wolfe contrasted
Kacs work to that of graphic artist
Sue Coe, as polar opposite approaches
to the use of animals in art. For Wolfe,
Kac interferes into the natural world
and displaces the human point of view.
Coe uses more traditional and direct media
such as drawing and prints to expose,
as a witness, the abusive and often grotesque
relations between humans and non-human
animals. Kacs work is difficult
to locate since the artist undermines
scopic habits emphasizing the irreducibility
of visual works to their perception. Wolfe
observed that Kac employs a digital visibility/invisibility
in very savvy strategies that have not
been picked up by art criticism. Further
contrast was made in relation to Sue Coes
ethical positions, which are stated in
visible images, as opposed to the complex
network topology, which Kac explores.
"Where is the network?" Wolfe
asked. Kac cant show viewers everything.
He does not present new forms of visuality
but a decentered vision submitted to a
new logic. His ecologies displace the
human point of view as he explores new
relations between vision and meaning.
Kacs complex telepresence networks
such as Rara Avis (in an aviary,
1996) and Darker Than Night (in
a bat cave, 1999) introduces sounds from
human viewers into the animals environment.
The media employed is less under control
and involves multiple participants among
humans, animals, plants and machines.
Another example given by Wolf was Kacs
Time Capsule (1997) a media spectacle
in which the visual is everywhere and
the meaning not there. According to Wolfe,
the work is to be found in no place, the
viewer cant see it. Quoting Derrida,
he observed that the invisible is not
the opposite of the visible and that Kac
has made a spectacle of our prosthesis:
the harder you look the less you see"the
meaning of the work is everywhere but
in the work."
The relevance and depth of the research
presented as well as the high level of
energy and collegiality throughout the
conference were remarkable. Being new
to SLSA, I found it certainly one of the
most intimate and productive conferences
I have participated in. For two decades
the SLSA has provided a core community
for interdisciplinary science studies
and has created a reputation for discussions
of works in progress. I only wished the
richness of these multidisciplinary dialogues
would reach beyond the mainstream academic
community of expert scholars, artists,
and scientists, as a way to revitalize
public knowledge and public media. The
Society meets annually in the USA (Autumn)
and, since 2000, biannually in a European
country (Spring). The upcoming 4th
European SLSA meeting will take place
between June 13 and 16 in Amsterdam.