The Strategy of Genesis. On the Productive Power of Artistic Iteration

Abstract

The paper aims at developing a theoretical outlook on Eduardo Kac’s Genesis, a bio-artistic operation of “perversion” of the biblical passage that establishes men’s dominion upon other living beings. The case study will be addressed through the analysis of the idea of productive iteration. Following Derrida’s reflections on the general iterability of marks and Butler’s investigation of the subversive potential of repetition, it will be shown how iteration can bring novelty into being – where such novelty occurs in a constantly renegotiated balance between chance and constraint. Finally, it will be claimed that this iterative dynamic can be regarded as a strategy of subjectivity production. These subjects, however, will be conceived in terms of sympoietic entities that are constitutively entangled with one another in relationships of mutual responsibility.