After having made comparisons between different 'forms' of art and different information networks, I'm (anthropologically) interested in how global culture can still be categorised (West, Non-West, etc), or made specific in a world were 'everything is connected'. What happens when culture constitutes its own context, and how do we increase communications without flattening out discrete societies?
When nature/science and society are as separate poles (as in Western modes of thought), a hierarchy ensues as a comparative anthropology is not possible (Bruno Latour 'We Have Never Been Modern', 1991). But there are ways in which similar models from these separate models can come together, and can also contribute to art history.
"Art-science projects such as MEArt, Silent Barrage, and more recently In Potentia have all situated living cells in dynamic feedback with a physical system. All of these works are cybernetic in the purest sense—the raw matter of an animal’s central nervous system hardwired into a mechanical system."
Steven Fortune, May 2013 here
This idea of the hybrid has deep-rooted anthropological implications, which I intend to investigate further.
In the mean time, here are some interesting moving images (that I really love) which can be explained via the previously mentioned article.
Another useful link: http://cyborganthropology.com/Main_Page
And here: http://wetwareontologies.tumblr.com/
