TABOO - TRANSGRESSION - TRANSCENDENCE

This paper deals about a recent research creation based named Incub.IA.tor. This installation art based research prompts a machine-incubator enable the breeding of organic tissue that could be grafted onto human bodies, with sanitary control by machine-learning. Hosted by “Hibridalab” in Spain and “Antre-Peaux” in France and a French laboratory “Bioconnect”, this project addresses the current issues around the frame of human body inside health department and others disciplines. The subject of organs donation is now a complexity ethically than economically. The impact of the xenotransplation — animals donor organs— questions a lot about the benefice of plants based donor organs. Furthermore, the impact of A.I in health questions about our knowledge of the body but also about data production and in a way private data.

Our first challenge is to raise questions about the commodification and hybridization of living organisms. This recent technique can continue this hybridization between the natural living and the human living. We hope to open up this reflection with Michel Foucault’s ideas about “biopolitics” and Critical Art Ensemble’s concept of the “Flesh Machine”. Our aim is to raise awareness of a new phase in which plant nature becomes an exploitable resource for human survival, transformed into an organic structure.

Another focus is on the question of body management in biopolitics and bioengineering as a tool of power. By creating human organs from plants, technological management of health and “body repair” becomes a tool for transforming and extending human biological capacities. Another form of power over human life is taking shape. The human body becomes a testing ground for sophisticated technologies. This same transformation requires us to redefine what a human body is. The decellularization of plants and AI control is an example of how technology is blurring the boundaries between the biological and the mechanical, the human and the non-human.

Finally, we'd like to highlight the need to make visible the hidden mechanisms behind biotechnology and economic systems. Who decides on the criteria that define the “norm”? Who benefits from these technological advances? Incub.IA.tor reveals a potential disparity when it comes to the challenges of biomedical technologies. Patients and doctors alike may not understand the vital decisions defined by algorithms.