Projeto de instalação desenvolvido pelos alunos do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Jornalismo Científico da Unicamp

love me notloveBiotechnology and Contemporanity

• Davi Santaella • Flávia Dourado • Enio Rodrigo • Hércules Menezes • Luiz Juttel • Murilo Alves •

Stem cells, transgenics, assisted reproduction, DNA, biofuels, genetic therapies, biodiversity, cloning... Can biotechnology truly help us to survive the 21st century? Will it provide all the answers? Solve our problems once and for all? Or will it bring us new ones?

Our culture is marked by the hegemony of scientific knowledge and by the conflicting dichotomy between different images of science – sometimes portrayed as panacea, others as a main cause for human suffering. Socially constructed polarized representations and stereotypes boosted by exaggerated perspectives for scientists’ capacity to promote either good or evil, particularly in the field of biotech and its applications.

The existence of stigmatized and paradoxical visions of science – expressed through the propagation of clichés, commonplaces and hyperbolic and standardized images – it is both cause and symptom of an institutional crisis: the crises of science. It lacks an identity that integrates its diverse representations and flexes its rules. Science is under transformation, in between the Modern and Post-Modern ages. Divided, therefore, between an imprisoning dualist past, a rigid and dogmatic way to produce knowledge, and a future, already under course, which can free it from its

inexorable pretensions to achieve absolute truth. Sitting at the edge in between these two scientific momentous, today’s biotechnology is something to come.

We’re living an era of questioning and reconstruction, in which new economic, social and cultural orders are being established, even though its final configuration still unclear. Science – considered by most the only reasonable way to explain the world and to guarantee our survival thru the 21st century – isn’t free from those questions and can be found surrounded by ethical, financial and moral debates as common as those which affect any institution of our time. Biotechnology may be the best representation of this problematic, since it was created right in the middle of this crisis. Ethical conflicts, economic interests, religion and possible benefits – filled by stereotypes – surround both the scientific practice and the imagination – powered by media’s dichotomist representations –, cracking wide-open the institutional crisis that affects science. PR

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“Love me, love me not”, is an artistic installation created by students from Unicamp’s Post Graduation Program on Science Journalism, and its objective is to critically discuss scientific contradiction, media discourse involving science and the future of our society, all facing new challenges brought by contemporaneity.

We propose to discuss biotech thru art, enlarging the scope for debating, moving it away from the technical arena and from the representations constructed by the media. Therefore, we want to expose the conflicts faced by science, to question the role of scientific activity, its products and its producers; and show it thru stereotyped visions of science.

We also wish to criticise science thru interactive and ludic ways, showing that significant information can be effectively communicated using unconventional and non-academic supports. Science and particularly biotechnology cannot be exclusively discussed inside technical arenas. It should and must be discussed by everybody, through different means and forms of knowledge like art.

•Big Brother: It aims on revealing the conflict generated by stereotyped and dualist visions of biotechnology in media’s discourse, assuming that the news commonly reproduces prejudices and polarized representation of science and ends up associating it to the odd and fantastic.

•Hidden messages It allows visitors to engage in a sensorial experience to understand the “biotech’s hidden discourses”, as well as to realise themselves as part of this knowledge building process.

•Black boxes It plays with the idea that science lives inside hermetic, closed and mysterious black boxes, filled by indecipherable and incomprehensible contents. Like the boxes used to store critical and secure information in airplanes, they hold precious knowledge, ideas, methods and truths that could only be accessed and understood by a community of chosen and prepared people – the scientists.(continue)

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•Self-portrait It shows scientists’ own vision of themselves thru the usage of photography.

•Science or fiction It critiques a stigmatized view of science commonly present to the general public – an either magical or miraculous science, an omnipotent power, constantly admired or feared. It also criticises media’s tendency to overemphasize bizarre, fantastic and extraordinary aspects when covering science.

SPECIFIC (cont.)GO

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Big Brother

Six old television sets or computer monitors showing close-up images of a man preaching opposing visions of biotech – both negative and positive – filled by stereotypes. This pieces has been directly inspired by George Orwell’s masterpiece “1984”.

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Black BoxesThis pis is formed by a set of eight black wooden boxes, approximately 40x40x40cm each, divided into two kinds:

- Visualization boxes: five boxes will have small holes thru which visitors can look in it. Boxes are lighten inside to allow visualization of its contents – objects or images referred to biotechnology;

- Touch boxes: three boxes have side holes that allow visitors to explores its contents using their hands without seeing what’s inside it.

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Self-portraitThis piece is a picture exhibition. We will ask three biotech scientists to choose and build a scenario that most represents his or hers daily activists, which will be photographed. Resulting pictures will be presented using acrylic holders and facing it image will be a mirror that reflects the self-portrait.

This piece also has a large wooden panel shaped and painted as a sheep – drawing used by Biotecnologias de Rua. The animal’s head is a cut-off, allowing visitors to give Dolly their own faces.

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1) A slide projector shows images, photographs and newspaper headlines which present biotechnology thru sensationalist approaches. Visitors have access to a remote control and can change the projected slide at anytime.

2) A metal shelve, similar to the ones used in drugstores, holds tagged glass jars filled by colourful candy that resembles pills. Tags’ inscription explain the indication of each particular “medicine” – pills of happiness, pills of beauty, pills of seduction, pills of intelligence, pills of richness, pills of youth and so on.

3) A printed collage banner filled with images and facts that surpasses normality and show that biotech lives in the realm of spectacular, unusual and sensational. Above it, visitors can read: Science or Fiction?

Science or Fiction This piece is made of three different objects:

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Hidden messagesHeld in a black painted corridor or room with entrances blocked by black curtains, this piece can only be explored using UV portable light beams – provided at the entrance door –, which allow visitors to walk around and read hidden messages regarding biotechnology written on the walls using ultraviolet sensitive paint.

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O O grupo de autores/artistas/realizadores/projetistas é composto por jornalistas e cientistas que atualmente cursam o curso de Especialização em Jornalismo Científico do Laboratório de Estudos Avançados (LABJOR) em Jornalismo da Unicamp. O presente projeto se insere na criação de um espaço de releituras sobre a Ciência e paralelos contemporâneos, para a matéria de Multimeios ministrada pelo Prof. Honoris Causa Paulo Martins.O grupo é composto por:

Davi SantaellaRadialista e diretor cinematográfico

Enio Rodrigo Barbosa SilvaDesigner e mestrando em história da arte.

Flávia Dourado MaiaJornalista e redatora.

Hércules MenezesBiólogo. Livre docente em imunologia. Professor de imunologia e biologia evolutiva do homem.

Luiz Paulo JuttelJornalista e pesquisador em filosofia da mente e ciências cognitivas.

Murilo Alves PereiraJornalista especializado na área ambiental.