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There are many ways of approaching the future, especially if we analyse the evolution of
science and technology and their impact on our lives. There has always been controversy
on the real contribution of science and technology to the arts and vice versa; neverthe-
less, the developments of intermediate practices, where it is not clear what is art and
what is science, in favour of analysing and transforming our society, bring us to the most
challenging positions in relation to progress. Though progress nowadays appeals to the
efficiency of capitalistic production, it has a much more profound meaning in the way we
would like to transcend the future. Pessimism and optimism govern progress, suggest-
ing that it comes so fast that we don’t take the time to analyse its moral and ethical conse-
quences.
From Rousseau, who argued that progress in science and arts led to moral decline, to
Feyerabend's concept of science as an anarchic process where anything goes, today it
is probably much more interesting to say that progress becomes visible whenever science
turns dogmatic and art questions it, urging for explicit freedom and radical ways of shap-
ing scientific knowledge.
The Ars Electronica Archive gives us a very intense illusion of what the future meant back
in the past. Though in some cases it is still difficult to judge today its importance in terms
of scientific progress, we can recognize some of the first practices and approaches deal-
ing with technology and society from a multidisciplinary perspective, in which scientists,
philosophers, artists, among others, proposed innovative approaches to something that
was supposed to be new. As in any reflexive and hypothetical activity, some of those visions
are today considered accurate and some naïve; we also came to understand that the
future doesn’t necessarily depend on an pioneering idea but needs to deal with other
variables, such as its dissemination or getting underway in a specific moment. The Ars
Electronica Archive makes us reflect on how some innovative technologies and ideas
have today become obsolete or been replaced just because of a techno lust fashion, in
other words, there are always differences amongst scientific interests, artistic propos-
als and commercial applications.
After the Second World War, in the period usually referred to as the “Cold War,” a series
of innovative investigations was carried out that delivered the basis of today’s new media
technologies. Those advancements came hand in hand with a series of economic, social,
media and cultural transformations that integrated technology as part of our daily lives.
But without leaving off the most important discoveries in science, we had also to deal
with the imagination and fantasies of human inventiveness. Incorporating those ideas in
the notion of progress means that these are fundamental themes for the future transfor-
mation of society. Here is where art offers us the possibility to deal today critically with
the future.
Simulations, which began in computer graphics and image processing systems, are now
being used for a diversity of biological processes and applications that carry some of the
most significant scientific developments. Once a nightmare, artificial systems are seen
nowadays as our allies in dealing with diseases, poverty and a perfectible humanity—a
new stage mastered by the artificial living forms and the social organisms.
As Vilém Flusser clearly pointed out, “Nature as a whole is a system in which information
disintegrates according to the second law of thermodynamics. Human beings struggle against
José-Carlos Mariátegui
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Progress Revisited
Biology Meets Humanity (Again)
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this natural entropy, not only receiving information but also storing and passing it on (in
this respect they differ from other forms of life). This specifically human and at the same
time unnatural ability is called ‘mind,’ and culture is its result.”
1
In this sense progress has
to deal with two instances that confront each other: biology and society. The biological
aim is the most basic and oldest, and it has existed since the first living creature appeared
on the planet. As biological evolution developed, a new kind of evolution appeared. It was
knowledge, and in human beings knowledge has the most differentiated characteristics
in comparison with other organisms. Knowledge leads to society and to the belief of a “social
aim,” in other words, the necessity to transcend biologically (by means of religion, ideas,
etc.). Though we have turned from a biological entity to a social one (social progress depends
on science and philosophy), the purpose and common wealth of humanity is still divided
in biological and social terms.
Paradoxically, we are getting back to our initial biological condition; by means of tech-
nology we can find out how biological mechanisms developed, meaning that we are re-
discovering key elements that lead to the progress of society. To talk about humanity has
been the main centre of intellectual discussion since the beginning of western thought
(philosophy), and today we are dealing with ways to see the relation between those ideas
(society) and ourselves (biology). This is where art and technology meet to discover new
relations and to confront them.
This could give us, by the use of technology, a critical perspective, even before the proven
demonstrations of scientific hypothesis, but understanding ethical issues that need to be
confronted with scientific discoveries. It is a capacity that expands the classical explana-
tory domain of physics and chemistry. In evolution and art there is a similarity in relation
to the effort of understanding the sources from free and combinatorial practices, but
constrained in ways that introduce novelty into the system. Art as a way of evolution looks
for a broader context to interact with life, in other words, defines a new way to think
progress.
Digital evolution will give rise to the convergence of all fields, an emphasis on coopera-
tion, and synthesis as the next cultural evolutionary step. This re-emergence of art and
science will promote new forms and dynamic relationships so ideas can be shared across
time and space to produce hybrid structures for a new type of society.
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1Flusser, Vilém. To wards a Philosophy of Photography. P 49. Reaktion Books Ltd, London, 2000
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