conVerge - Genomics - Michele Barker

Genomics - Michele Barker

I've been working on an interactive CD Rom for what seems like most of my adult life that is predominately about genetics - genetic engineering and the notion of the monstrous.

The title of today's discussion is The Residual Memory. During the course of creating this CD Rom, I established a strong idea of this notion that there is some intrinsic relation between genetic code and computer code. Their reductionist state presumes and the concept of programming alludes to it, so in this particular instance I actually wish to argue for a relationship of reality and digitality.

To illustrate this idea I'd like to take cloning as my point of corporeal departure and network systems as my digital one. So the underlying principle of genetics is it's code, that is the different combination of base pair sequences of proteins, rendered symbolically as variations of G, A, C, T and A. In some ideal scenarios these sequences would tell us who we are, what is wrong with us now and in the future and of course how to fix it.

If you consider the code underlying the software program and subtracting the personal pronouns from the above scenario you would see a similar pattern. The code tells you who, tells you what it is and therefore what it does and what is wrong with it and assuming you were a good programmer, what could potentially become problematic and finally how to fix it - easy. Thousands of books have been written on the subject, numerous programming languages exist and the code can be deciphered, altered and added to.

But the genetic code which contains only one manual, the somewhat biblically titled Book of Life, contains a programming language of which no one is entirely clear.

Now the issue that I really wish to argue here is the one of cloning and the implications of the copy, specifically of the digital (as opposed to an analogue one) and another concept that extends outward from the digital, that of network systems. Cloning assumes a kind of closed system, perhaps in the same way that assumption continues to operate about data, that it can simply be copied from one system to another, generally uncorrupted and fundamentally unchanged. This infers in both instances a system that is not effected by outside influences.

The most common misconception is that the biological client is identical to the original. Yet this is not and can never be the case. In the instance of Dolly the sheep, she was cloned from the cell of a ewe that provided the original nucleus. Therefore allowing for identical nuclear DNA. Yet the two do not share identical cyberplasm. Cyber-plasm, an overlooked area of reproduction generally (genetic engineering even more so) contains it's own genetic material. Located in the mitchondria it will also have a genetic influence on the final phena-type. As such identical twins, the result of a single cell splitting are more identical than a biological clone.

As a system of reproduction, cloning is clearly problematic. In the opening scene of Alien Resurrection, Ripley the films every residual protagonist states, 'My Mummy always said that there were no monsters. No real ones. But there are.' Alien Resurrection was realised in 1997, the same year that Dolly was introduced to the world via the scientific journal Nature. She was seven months old by this time. She was also their 277th attempt. The scene in Alien Resurrection where Ripley, cloned from the blood left behind in the space prison of Alien, discovers the other less successful versions of herself is for all it's cinematic sci-fi effects, not entirely unrealistic. An article in the Sydney Morning Herald, declared "Human Cloning risks oversized babies: Human babies would be unusually big, perhaps about 6.8kgs, and would likely die within weeks from heart and blood vessel problems, under developed lungs, diabetes, or immune system deficiencies. Those who survive would have navels two or three times the normal size. Cloned cows have been born with head deformities such as bull dog like squashed face or heads. They never survived."

The problems raised here are common place medical issues but they can also be argued from a different, perhaps more simplistic perspective. The issue of the biological clone, indeed any form of clone, is that the process of copying is causing mutations on two distinct and perhaps contradictory levels. Reproduction via sex results in new individuals produced from the fusion of gametes, that is the sperm and eggs. Gametes are produced by mitosis, a process where there's a greater chance that any damage through mutations developed in the course of the individuals life, will not appear in the offspring. In cloning however this process does not take place and therefore those mutations will be passed on. The assumption that the copy collapses into the original should be taken to it's logical conclusion - everything is copied - not just a signal but also the noise. Accordingly one could also consider that a form of corruption takes place in the process of copying. That is the effect of carrying over the mutation into the succeeding generation.

Five years on, Dolly is experiencing the effects of being a clone of a six year old ewe. The structure at the end of her chromosomes that become older with age appear to be displaying characteristics of a much older sheep, an eleven year old to be precise. She's recently developed arthritis which is extremely uncommon in a sheep of her age or in her particular environment.

If we assume that in cloning a morphological relationship with digital code is maintained, it is easy to see how we fall into the trap of cloning towards a closed notion of identity and away from biodiversity. This is because only the copy that carries the best signal to noise ratio (that is where signal is maximum and data is perfect and where noise and corruption have been discarded) is retained out of a range of many. If we take into account the digital now as mutating open media system operating in a networked environment, then we would have to also think about the morphology of cloning quite differently. That is that cloning is quite evidently not about a process of perfect copying, but about a monstrous morphology of multiple and mutated attempts at signal reproduction. What we have is a biodiversity of corruption. A closed system impinged upon an open one. Yet without the safe guards that filter out the noise.

Where will this new form of biodiversity lead? In talking solely about animals, Wilmott and Campbell confronted the claims about a lack of genetic diversity through cloning, by arguing a case for endangered species and genetic drift, the process whereby generation after generation, genes are lost via the process of reproduction due to the fact that only half the parents genes will be passed on to its offspring. They claim that if reproduction rates are high, as in a fly or a cod fish, this is not a problem as chances are at some point during the parents breeding lifetime it would have passed on one copy of all of its genes. Yet in a species that does not produce in such abundance eg the rhinoceros, or is endangered eg the orang-utan, then genetic drift will occur. Cloning therefore becomes an ideal way to save the species and all of it's genes. Yet we must question what impact this would have on the process of evolution and a species that is almost completely or totally extinct. The process of cloning would eventually create a form of inbred, an immediate recipe for non-evolutionary mutation and biodiversity.

So shifting this argument from the biological to the digital (computing environment), we also back up files. Everybody's got to consider that one copy might be different from another. Often we use multiple machines and ascertaining which one was actually the original can even be difficult but if we were to literally open this argument up and address the fact that most of us work, all be it to varying degrees on network systems then what we have is an open digital system. Data copied across a network system will change. Those changes might be minute, a lost byte here, a dropped macard there but the transfer of data on some micro level has perpetuated change. Naturally in most instances it may never be enough to be detectable, it's just a small insignificant alteration. Yet the continued copy of the copy could inevitability lead to corruption or what I prefer to call mutation. There are times when the corruption of data is immediate, when a file can't be opened, a virus has become attached to it or it is simply now in a system that can't read it. It's environment is different.

In producing my CD Rom I worked as part of a small team. I developed the ideas and content, then passed them onto my programmer who put the various elements together based on my specifications. This would then go to the sound designer who would subsequently add the audio. Simple - not.

From the minute the content left my machine and was burnt to a verified CD, changes would occur. Once aspects of the sound programming were complete, again burnt to a CD and given to me, things would invariably go wrong. The program would look for files not residing on my machine. Something, be it a programmable instruction or an audio file once used and then discarded, would cause errors in the program, errors not found on the machines where the individual elements were produced.

Now I'm not talking about something as simple as neglecting to include a rule that the program requires to operate correctly or some specific tactical error in the code. I am referring to what I believe is a unique residual memory contained within computer systems. Computers work with two kinds of memory, a hard drive as defined by the generic Apple Macintosh manual as 'a large capacity permanent device for storing software documents and other files'. In theory, it's memory is permanent. Each time a computer is turned on those files will exist in the same location and will contain the same content. The second kind of memory required to operate any kind of computing system is random access memory, or Ram. Ram is designed to run the operating system and the software programs that are in the machine. Information can only exist in ram whilst the machine is on, so after a shut down has been performed the computer has no memory of any tasks or instructions that took place previously.

Yet as highlighted by the problems that are continually encountered, at some level a kind of residual memory is still operating. As such a copy of my CD functions differently depending on the machine. The copy appears identical yet it is bringing with it, it's own digital history into another environment and in this instance causing corruption. Trust me these aren't jokes either.

So I'd like to just jump back to the clone again for a moment and keeping in mind this notion of residual memory. One of New York's most vocal advocates of cloning is 63 year old man by the name of Randolph Whicker. According to an article in Time Magazine in February 2001, Whicker's desire to have a child goes beyond his own life span. If he cannot successfully clone himself before he dies, he wishes to have it included in his will that it will happen after his death. Why? One can only summarise that he believes that part of him, not just certain physical traits but pneumonic ones, will get passed on, allowing him to live through the child he may never know.

One of the most unusual examples cited in the article, is if one considers the fact that people want to clone because they cannot conceive, as is the case of Bill who wishes to clone his dying mother. In this instance, Bill wishes to take two tissue specimens from his mother and have them frozen until cloning becomes as viable and presumably safe process. In Bill's mind the clone would again be his mother even though it is being carried by his wife and brought up as his own child. To believe such a thing is possible would imply that Bill, as many others like him, have adopted the idea that what is being transferred via the process of genetic cloning is a memory of a former self. In the Time article as Bill himself states, "She really didn't have the opportunities we had in the baby boomer generation because her parents experienced the Depression and the War. So the feeling is that maybe we could give her the opportunities that she didn't have."

Bill appears to be assuming that his 'mother child' would appreciate her new life based on the struggle that went on in her former one and it begs the question of what people really believe memory is. Is it only the profound or disturbing experiences that will get passed on? Or in conjunction with that, significant or happy moments? In the minds of those who wish to be cloned, a biological process is being subsumed by an effective one beyond the standard traits of a child born out of sexual reproduction.

Yet in essence what we're seeing is again the idea that cloning could and does operate within a closed system, whereby such information will be transmitted, uncorrupted and with a high signal to noise ratio. However as we have seen, cloning be it digital or biological, operates within an open system and therefore can change that system. The clone therefore would be a factor for change not stasis.

The confusion of the biological and digital is not a new concept for artists, although it is one that I have been somewhat critical of. In 1996 the theme for AusElectronica was Menaces - the Future of Evolution. The foundation for this particular thematic came ten years prior when in 1976 geneticist Richard Dawkins published The Selfish Gene. As he himself admits, the idea of the Menes was really an afterthought and was used to conclude his somewhat contentious and still highly debated theory of genetics. Menes are essentially the cultural equivalent of genes, information passed on by imitation as opposed to genetic instruction. During the early-mid 90s, many artists working with computer technology embraced Dawkins' high fidelity or digital concept of genetics as a cultural transmission of information, particularly via the web became very strong. Again it brings us back to the position of a closed system and a notion of the accurate copy.

So in summing up, I believe that we can construct a morphological relationship between encoding and cloning but here we must remember that a code is not a program that produces identity through the process of exact copying, but rather is inclined towards a monstrosity through it's inherent production of diversity.