Article Analysis Essay on The Ethics and Anxiety of Being with Monsters and Machines

In the article, the ethics and anxiety of being with monsters and machines, Mathew Causey defines transgenic art based on the application of genetic engineering techniques to create unique living things (131). He argues that this form of new art is not only described by factors of birth and growth but also by the nature of the relationship between the creator, the transgenic organism and the public. He then s suggests that artists can immensely contribute to global biodiversity by inventing new forms of life through transgenic art. The author notes that transgenic art has a moral and ethical dimension that must be well addressed. Given mans dominance and supremacy over nature, his creations must be treated with care and above all, respected and loved (139). Machines have brought change to the way work used to be completed. For example, humans beings start and end performance while objects and machines will keep working since they are not limited by time. The immortal nature of the machines, evidenced by the inexhaustible performance, brings mortality to stage.

Contemporary art practices have contributed to the demise of art as a medium. Lev Manovich, in the article called Post media Aesthetics, notes that emergent practices in technology and cultural have changed the concept of art as a medium although no new topology of art has replaced the role of media-based technique (143). Some of the developments that have contributed to this change include installation art, assemblage, and happening. The multiplicity of these typologies has not only threatened the old typology of media, such as sculptures, drawing, and painting but also allowed for the use of different materials in art practice. Mass culture has also revolutionized old typology that can be described through an analogy of art and mass culture (148). Systems of modern art involve the circulation of objects that were available in small editions, while mass culture dealt with a mass distribution of identical copies. The authors argue that the perceptual equivalence in image duplication in traditional media does snot result to conceptual equivalence.

The process and operations used to create digital images are less known than traditional typologies like drawings and paintings. Part of the explanation, according to Martin constable and Adele Tan, is that digital media are taken for granted and look similar to photographs and paintings (155). Another explanation that I strongly agree is that digital art like photographs can be created and manipulated without any professional artistic skills. Digital images can easily be taken with a camera, and identical copies made and shared across the world. The creator has fewer reasons to understand the process and technicality involved in digital images creation, and will, therefore, take the medium for granted. Digital art has not guilt and allows the creator to achieve complexity to depict a utopian world perfectly. The practice is facilitated by editing software like Adobe Photoshop, Word Publisher, and Core Draw which is not only in the fabric of the material acquired but also in the editing of templates that control the direction of the final output (162). Therefore, compared to traditional arts, digital art is the result of numerous edits that are controlled by standardized actions such that creativity and uniqueness are highly questionable.

Works Cited

Gregory Curley. Art and humanity values. University of Oregon (n.d)/