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C. Westermann:
"The Scientific Divine";
Talk: Transmodalities: Mind, Art, New Media - Symposium, Sabanci Universität, Istanbul, Türkei; 12-01-2005 - 12-02-2005.

The Scientific Divine

"And yet, who, that knew anything about life, would surrender the chance of remaining always young, however fantastic that chance might be, or with what fateful consequences it might be fraught?" - Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray - 1890


For decades medical devices have found their ways into our bodies. This is not new. Yet, the capacities of these devices were relatively limited. Current research in neuroscience and genetics, however, herald the final post-human era of both a technological body and mind. Its limits are unknown. Part for part the human will replace himself with "smart" devices. Part for part the self will be assigned to the activities of specific neurons within our brain.

Aging belongs to nature only, age to matter that is irreplaceable.

"I am my own sacrifice, designed to be sacred", says the girl who is the product of scientific vision and she continues with a smile: "I am the synthesis of holiness and pleasure. Innocence is immanent to me."

Or should we assume that we - products - could be responsible for sin?

Condemned to eternal return, how will we synchronize with a world that knows the truly ephemeral - history - and with it memory and dream?

It may be that one day, we will wish for the portrait painting that at least symbolically, bears our unique history and assigns to us a place.

science, place, divine, media