Artificial life as subversion of flesh: strategies for hybridization

The paper is devoted to ontological issues of artificial life as modification of the flesh. The author assumes that artificial life becomes possible through subversion of the biological life to the level of manipulations with raw material and creation of the hybrid forms. As a methodological foundation the author uses an original approach and applies science art (contemporary art based on scientific research and new technologies) claiming it to be a philosophical method that helps us to combine material aspects of science and technology with cultural and political meanings. The idea of hybridity is also considered as both an ontological combination of individual objects and a useful cultural metaphor for this kind of possible combinations. The author claims to prove that contemporary understanding of hybridity is rooted in the modernist world view as it is scientific transformation. Its radical version is well known to be a foundation of the Bolshevik ideology. In the paragraph ''Advent of the Hybrid'' there are two early and exemplary modernist scientific experiments of subversing the flesh described. One is made by transplantology surgeon Serge Voronov with sex glands and the other is experiments with crossbreeding humans and monkeys by zoologist Ilya Ivanov (both were seeking for effects of life longevity and rejuvenation). The analysis of these works allows the author to formulate major principles of hybridization. In the paragraph ''Artists-Bolsheviks: strategies for hybridization'' these principles are applied to the works of science artists and their ontological implications. In the project ''Ear on arm'' of Australian artist Stelarc the subversion of the flesh of the artist himself becomes a de-individualization of the human as a biological entity and moves to the search for alternative anatomic architecture of the human body. In the project ''MEART. The semi-living artist'' by science-art group Symbiotica we face the possibility of artificial life in the form of new kind of creature and development of the ontology of semi-living. Simultaneously ironical as well as absolutely literal transformation of the living organism into industrial flesh to be used as a source of energy or another utility is presented in the work of Joe Davis (project ''Making fire''), James Auger and Jimmy Loiseau (projects ''Carnivorous domestic entertainment robots'', ''Afterlife'') and Tuur van Balen (project ''Pigeon d'Or''). Festival of tissue and the magic of tissue transformation by means of biotechnology is demonstrated in the works of Julia Reodika (project ''HymNext'') and Guy Ben-Ary (project ''In Potencia''). As a conclusion the author proposes a thesis that modernist scientific ambitions and our days experiments of science art as well as the formation of a new culture of artificial life are rooted in some sort of technological unconscious that can be named ''the Preobrazhensky syndrome'' with the reference to the characters of Mikhail Bulgakov's famous novel Heart of a Dog (inspired by works of Ivanov and Voronov).

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