The Molecular Gaze: Art in the Genetic Age (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press Series on Genomics, Bioe)

Rating:
Summary: An artistic journey through contemporary scientific ideas
Review: This is a very inspiring book. An excellent and complete overview of how genetic research is permeating popular culture, of how the gene has become a powerful and pervasive icon with a social meaning that goes beyond its biological properties.
This is an excellent volume for those who are interested in the regular shifts of boundaries between the domains of art and science. The authors explore the rise of an increasingly important new trend in contemporary art involving science by documenting the ideas and images that artists are using in association with the genetic view of life. They underline and provide insight into the social and cultural meaning of genetic research and of genetic essentialism through contemporary artists' interpretation of scientific process. In its well odered and relevantly different sections, Suzanne Anker and Dorothy Nelkin touch upon topics such as the sequencing of the genome and the reduction of humans to 'molecularl texts', the concept of identity, genetic engineering, the creation of transgenics and chimeras, assisted reproduction and cloning.
It is thorough work and well written, with the necessary historical references. A continuous, witty, appropriate and precise account of the questions, concepts, ideas and images fluctuating between the realm of science and that of art. I highly recommend it. A very good buy.
Giovanni Frazzetto (Molecular Biologist, Writer)