I was lucky enough to meet the artist Lisa Moro as she was preparing for her new exhibition Exquisite Cords, which recently opened at the Allsop Gallery in Bridport. Lisa describes Exquisite Cords as "an exhibition which explores a future where your DNA makes your life rosier by making all your decisions for you".
For part of my journey back to London, Lisa and I were on the same train, and our conversation turned to the philosophical conundrum that is DNA research, and the effects it might have on biodiversity and our connection with nature.
Jennifer Mitchell: I recently had an epiphany about the question of free will vs determinism (or predestination if you prefer). I realized that they might not be mutually exclusive. If, I said to myself, I was to be put into the same situation over and over again by some mechanism of time travel, with all foreknowledge erased regarding the effects of the decision I had previously made in that situation, I believe that I would keep making the same choice over and over again infinitely, because I am me, and that is the choice I would make. Surely though, this unwaveringness reinforces the notion that I have an essential "me-ness", rather than eroding it. Predestination must exist BECAUSE we have freedom of choice, not because we don't. If you were to replay a person's entire "timeline" over and over again, they would always end up in the same place, not because their fate has been decided by external forces, but because they are themselves, and they will always make the same choices.
Having said that, your latest artwork throws something of a spanner in the works of my epiphany. As I understand it, you posit that fate is a force not external, but internal. That there is no "me". I am simply a biological computer, programmed to generate a predetermined output based on a specific input.
Would you say that your artwork is suggesting, somewhat nihilistically, that rather than looking upwards, outside of the universe, for the personification of "Fate" or some other omnipotent deity/s, we should be looking inwards - that we are being tyrannised by our own biology? Or, are you suggesting, more satirically, that our search for God/Fate in our DNA is ultimately foolish and doomed to fail because we are so much more than mere biological matter?
Lisa Moro: The idea for my exhibition - having a machine that scans your DNA, then uses the information to meet your needs - does use the idea of predetermination, but I play with the idea that both the technology is imperfect and that commercial interests will skew the outcome.
A few years ago, when there was a concern about Google using our data, I looked at the profile Google had given me and it had classed me as a man in his 60s rather than a woman in her 30s. I realised that commercial entities will look to categorise us within a definition they can sell on or to fit their range of products. Who we actually are is not of concern. What they are interested in is that some of the behaviour I have is similar to a man in his 60s. That information is more useful to them than the truth.
I am also poking at the rise in identity politics, in a world where we have become much more accepting of difference, we are also creating endless identity boxes to define ourselves and communicate this to others. In my world these identities become scientific fact. The stakes are raised. I’m not late because I’m a bit disorganised, I’m late because I am genetically predisposed and it can be proved. With this knowledge and scientific assessment I have the evidence to demand my needs are met and can start a new rights movement.
I do like to paint this as a kind of tyranny. The idea is attractive but the consumer becomes a by product in their own life where they are placed in the middle of transactions between their biology - genetic code in every cell - and the commercial world. The system created knows what is best for you, even if you don’t like the sound of it.
Your Perfect Life Awaits, by Lisa Moro.
Jennifer Mitchell: I've heard it suggested that the human species, or whatever we were just before we were us, was singled out by extraterrestrial scientists when they visited our planet prehistorically (prehistorically for us anyway) and used their own gene editing science to augment our DNA by splicing it with their own, and that this event explains our disproportionately rapid evolution compared to other species. What do you think of this theory? Do you have your own theory to explain why we are the only advanced species on Earth?
Lisa Moro: This is a very interesting idea. Is this the only way for this to have happened? Perhaps just some DNA arrived on Earth (somehow) and the DNA information has infected a line of species on Earth. I suppose I would have to ask what would be in it for the ET scientists? Are they still here? They don’t seem to be. Why cross-breed to create a lesser being? While I like the idea, I tend to assume cock-up over conspiracy.
In my recent exhibition Figli Del Mare, I play with the idea of a fish trader making a deal with a mysterious old man that he might be delivered of 100 children to help make his business successful. The grubby nature of the deal leads to the children arriving one day, but they have been misproduced, and their faces are the faces of fish, perhaps from the large amount of fish he handles. The half-fish nature of the children makes them lazy and they become a burden rather than a help.
The Arrival of the Fish Headed Children, by Lisa Moro.
Jennifer Mitchell: It seems that scientists, as they master the art of manipulating DNA, are coming closer to perfecting the process of de-extinction. Now, my inner child would love to see creatures such as the elephant birds, which have been lost forever, brought back to life... but my outer adult is conflicted. There's a difference between being excited about something in principle and believing that it would be a good idea in practice, because in practice we have human nature to contend with. How do you feel about de-extinction?
Would you say that we, the human species, stand above nature (perhaps because of our alien DNA), and if we succeed in our experiments with de-extinction then we have a moral responsibility to bring back any creatures that we cause to go extinct? Alternatively, are we part of nature, and are our endeavors to improve our own situation, clumsy and destructive as they may be, simply a part of the process of natural selection and the evolution of the planet? Thus, should any species that we wipe out stay extinct?
Or (this one gets a bit existential) are our endeavors to use cloning and gene editing to bring extinct species back to life, themselves a part of the process of natural selection and the evolution of the planet?
Lisa Moro: Bringing anything back other than the most recently extinct gives me great worries about unexpected impact. Horrible diseases returning, and the potential to wipe out other species in the process. This could well include ourselves.
At the point a species becomes extinct, it is usually because its existence is untenable on the planet, so by bringing it back we will only have the same thing happen again unless we move to ensure the Earth is habitable for them.
As we are able to augment our own DNA as a species there will always be motivations which are not to the benefit of humans as a whole. Parents who spend a lot of money on creating a superior child may not wish their child’s line, and their investment to be ruined through future mating. They could prevent the ability to procreate with inferior humans via the DNA, creating a new super human category. This would not be natural selection - more unnatural selection. Picking out characteristics we find pleasing does not compare to the refinement of a species over millions of years and we leave ourselves vulnerable as we choose superficial characteristics.
