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Literature and Medicine 26, no. 1 (Spring 2007) 207239 2008 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

Racial Aura: Walter Benjaminand the Work of Art in aBiotechnological AgeAlys Eve Weinbaum

[T]he meaning o raia dierene is itse being hanged, as thereationship between human beings and nature is reonstruted bythe impat o the DNA revoution and o the tehnoogia deveop-ments that have energized it. . . . [W]e must try to take possessiono that proound transormation and somehow set it to work againstthe tainted ogi that produed it.

Pau Giroy, Against Race: ImagingPolitical Culture Beyond the Color Line

In reent years, humanists, sientists, soia sientists, and thepopuar press have argued that rae is no onger a bioogiay mean-ingu ategory or onept. In view o reent geneti evidene aboutinherited traits, shoars and pundits argue, it is ear that the oe-tion o purported essenes and phenotypi traits that we have thoughtabout unti now and reerred to as raia in harater ease to index

signiant geneti dierenes and thus ease to exist as meaningu bioogia dierenes.1 Suh assertions about what may most apty be dubbed our post-raia moment represent the umination o aarger ross-disipinary onsensus produed in the wake o the eu-genis movement in the eary years o the twentieth-entury and thesubsequent genoide o Word War II.2 As the argument goes, nothingess than a move beyond rae wi enabe a rae-obsessed soiety totransend the reportedy invidious idea o rae, whih advoates opost-raiaism regard as responsibe or raism. As ritia rae theoristssuh as Mihae Omi and Howard Winant expain, the ontemporaryraia ormation is undergirded by a ibera mantra that has proveninstrumenta in reent deades in dismanting armative ation and


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a variety o other rae-based soia justie programs, the mantra o

so-aed oorbindness.

3

In its urrent inarnation as sienti at, the oorbind positiongathers renewed ore: a oorbind, nay post-raia soiety, it is nowargued, is ahievabe by subjeting the idea o rae to the binding ighto geneti reason, or perhaps more auratey to ge eetrophoresis,the aboratory protoo used to proess DNA ragments so that theymay be sequened and anayzed. Indeed, ever sine the announemento the ompetion o the map o the human genome in June 2000, thease against rae more oten than not is presented in geneti terms and

as denitivey osed. As a headine in the New York Times rhetoriayqueried as eary as August 2000, Do Raes Dier? Not Reay GenesShow. By 2003, Scientic American saw t to announe on its overthat Siene Has the Answer to the age-od onundrum o raiadierene: rae has no geneti basis.4 What onerns me in this artieis that even as the hegemony o a oorbind raia projet urrenty being expressed as a post-raia euphoria hods sway, the dominantunderstanding o rae, newy energized by genomis, exists side byside with a uture that ontinues to renew its ommitment to the

idea o rae through its pratie o biotehnoogy.

I. The Genetis o coorbindness, or the Paradoxo the Post-Raia consensus

Most o the biotehnoogia, media, and onsumer pratiesurrenty avaiabe, routiney presribed, and widey purhased de-pend on genetiized ideas o rae and, paradoxiay, on the same

genomi siene that has been invoked to prove the non-existene ogenetiay distint raes. Here, I reer to a range o praties, amongthem rereationa geneaogy, rae-based mediine, and the new ertiitymediine omprised o an arsena o assisted reprodutive tehnoogies,or so-aed ARTs.

In one ear-ut instane, rae is resurreted in and through theexpanding market in rereationa geneaogy that requenty aims to be abe to identiy the onsumers raia origins. Suh geneaogiatests popuarize and ommeriaize the work o popuation genetiists

who have used DNA anaysis o many o the words peopes to ar-gue that individuas an be assigned to their ontinent o origin onthe basis o their DNA ngerprint by adding to this researh theaim that suh geographi regions orrespond to se-identied raia


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ategories.5 consumers mai o a swab o inner heek es and two

to our hundred doars and reeive an anaysis o their DNA thatidenties their origins in terms o rae and ethniity, inorming themwhether they are Arian, East Asian, Jewish, Native Amerian, or,perhaps, a bit o eah. Dierent onsumers are purhasing suh testsor diverse reasons: Arian Amerians are using testing to estabishgeneaogia inkages to Aria severed by the egay o savery and,in some prominent ases (Oprah Winrey and Henry louis Gates Jr.among others), to estabish onnetions with partiuar Arian tribes.By ontrast, Amerians who have ived their ives as white are using

the tests to prove their minority status in the hopes o quaiying orrae-based resoures, inuding oege admission and nania aid.Whie it is improbabe that governments, universities, and other institu-tions wi soon aept ommeria DNA tests as proo o raia identity,the degree to whih suh testing is today impating the onstrutiono raia identity is proound. Speiay, avaiabiity o rereationaDNA testing has inaugurated the argest surge in Arian Amerianinterest in geneaogy sine Aex Haeys 1976 nove Roots. It has asoroutinized white peopes opportunisti use o a poweru too (DNA

testing) apabe o undermining raia identities internaized and onghed to be se-evident based on phenotype.6

In reerring to the resurgene o the idea o rae in our sup-posedy post-raia moment, I reer seondy to the use o rae in thedeveopment o drugs advertised by their makers to at seetivey onspei raia groups. The most oten disussed and ontroversia othese is ommeriay known as BiDi, a ombination o two existingdrugs, isosorbide dinitrate and hydraazine, whih was approved in 2005 by the FDA or presription to baks who suer rom heart aiure.

FDA approva was based on a series o inia trias that purport tohave reveaed BiDis exusive eetiveness among Arian Amerians.7Athough the debates among sientists and researhers raised by BiDiare the same ongoing debates about genetis and disease and the roeo rae and/or raism in the prodution o heath disparities that havepagued the media and researh ommunities over the years, what isunpreedented in the urrent situation is the oetive wiingness toorge ahead with the use o bak and/or Arian Amerian as aprinipa riterion or drug presription, even in the ae o the on-sensus expressed by genetiists that rae does not exist. As soioogistTroy Duster has ogenty and repeatedy expained to those wiing toisten, even as some sientists argue against the existene o rae, oth-ers have beome inreasingy sanguine about utiizing the ategory o


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rae in their researh on disease when this ategory produes resuts

desirabe to pharmaeutia ompanies and desperate patients aike.

8

In2003, or equay strategireasons having to do with the history o raistdisparities in the provision o heath are in the United States, HowardUniversity, an historiay bak institution, announed its pan to reatea databank o DNA rom individuas who identiy as being o Ariandesent in order to insure that Arian Amerians are not et out whenthe media benets o the genomi revoution are reaped.9

Finay, whie both rae-based mediine and rereationa genea-ogy revea the paradoxia persistene o genetiized raia thinking in

our supposedy post-raia moment, arguaby the most ommonpaereourse to rae made by miions o Amerian onsumers eah yearours in the ontext o the purhase and pratie o reprodutivemediine, partiuary the purhase and use o ARTs and the genetimaterias they oten require. These tehnoogies, inuding artiia orintra-uterine insemination (AI or IUI), in vitro ertiization (IVF), em- bryo transer (ET), and a range o other more sophistiated tehniques,have beome so ompetey integrated into Euro-Amerian uturethat they are regarded as part and pare o norma reprodutive

mediinenot as a resoure to be sought by a seet ew but ratheras an option routiney seeted by the ever-expanding portion o thepopuation (generay estimated at 1520%) who are deemed inertieand thus in need o biotehnoogia assistane.10 As anthropoogistSarah Frankin has persuasivey argued, when the natura proesseso reprodution need ontinuous tehnoogia assistane, we witnessan unpreedented imposion o nature into uture and a onsequentoss o aith in nature as a reerent system.11

Without exeption, onsumers o ARTs use rae as a primary

riterion in the seetion o the geneti materias neessary to redressinertiity. Eggs, sperm, and zygotes are a understood to possessgenetiay identiabe raia traits, espeiay those that onsumersantiipate wi beome visibe on the surae o their hid-to-bes body.And thus, again, the paradox: even as the post-raia onsensus takesroot, ARTs are pratied in a manner that resoutey depends on thedepoyment and reiation o genetiized ideas o rae, that is, on theidea o rae as a bioogia and inheritabe essene, resident in DNAand, most importanty, visibe on the bodys surae may be auated.As eminist anthropoogists and soioogists have doumented, in thevast majority o ases, reprodution o pereted progeny amountsnot ony to prodution o a deet- and disabiity- ree hid but,as importanty, to the reation o a hid who is identiabe as thesame rae as the soia parents to be.


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O ourse, as I have argued extensivey esewhere, the mis-

guided idea o rae as a bioogiay reproduibe and visibe identityhas remained remarkaby stati in the modern period, and thus theparadoxia invoation o rae in our supposedy post-raia momentemerges as perhaps a too preditabe.12 Within the transatanti on-text, beginning in the nineteenth entury, arguments grounded in theso-aed raia sienes ast traits suh as ineriority and degenera-tion as rae traits that oud be reprodued and passed on romgeneration to generation i reprodutive aianes aied to be areuymonitored and ontroed. Beie in the idea o the reproduibiity o

raia traits underay muh o the enturys anti-immigration poiy,inuding the ideoogy o raia nationaism or white nationhood in-voked by immigration Restritionists and Nativists who sought to keepthe nationa gene poo pure and white throughout the rst hao the twentieth entury, the deveopment o one-drop rues and Jim crow, and the birth o the eugenis movement that began in theUnited States in the 1910s and soon migrated to Germany. Beie inthis raiaized and genetiized reprodutive ogi in the United Statesaso ed to mass steriization ampaigns o those deemed unt or

reprodution, inuding Native Amerians, the so-aed eebeminded,and those regarded as sexuay deviant.13

currenty, ar rom having transended ideas about the reprodu-ibiity o rae as a bioogia essene, we are witnessing onsoidationo suh ideas through their deepened genetiization and ommodia-tion. In inrequent ases in whih white women have eeted to usesperm rom men o dierent raes, their pursuit and purhase o exotiommodities an (though does not aways) auger the innite variety oorms that raism an and does take. Suh wayward raia seetions

are expressy intended to produe interraia hidren, a (re)produtivepratie that is utimatey no more or ess rae onsious than that whihaims to reate a peret raia math. In at, even in those ases inwhih esbian or queer interraia oupes eet to produe mixed raehidren refetive o the raia omposition o their reationships, wewitness yet one more o the innite orms that ontemporary raiaetishism may take. In the ase o surrogay, when surrogates gestateembryos omprised o their own ova, their servies and bodiy ma-terias beome indistinguishabe, and surrogates are thus seeted byonsumers based on the projeted raia and phenotypi outomes thatthe surrogates empoyment wi enabe. conversey, as anthropoogist,Hena Ragon demonstrates, in instanes in whih surrogates gestateunreated geneti materia, the raia dierenes between the surrogateand soia parents are deemed ess reevant.14 Far rom ontravening


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the dominant soia beie in the genetis o rae, this pratie ony

urther suggests its power: the rae o the surrogate beomes inon-sequentia when she is redued to a aboring body, a womb or sae.One again, the raia onnetions that ount are those that produethe veneer o raia ontinuity aross generations. Apparenty, in theontext o a supposedy post-raia ree market in geneti materiasand reprodutive servies, even mutiutura orms o reprodutivereiproity are raught with eugeni undertones.15

Given these trends, it is perhaps unsurprising that in rare instanesin whih use o geneti ommodities have resuted in ospring o an

unantiipated rae, awsuits have ensued. In one instrutive instane,a white mother who underwent in vitro ertiization invoving donatedsperm gave birth to twins, one o whom was, upon birth, deemed bak. She sued the ertiity ini that had perormed the proedureor damages resuting rom the duress o her wayward birth and theraist taunting that her hid subsequenty onronted. Her grievanestemmed rom the aim that she had been inseminated with raiaymismathed sperm, rom an overriding sense that the rae o the spermshoud have been genetiay identiabe by her dotors, and aso rom

her eeing that her white reprodutive body shoud rightuy have beenthe repository o a white hid.16 In another ase that went beore theUnited States Supreme court ( Johnson v. Calvert, 1993), a bak surrogatewho attempted to breah ontrat in order to keep the white-ookinghid that she had gestated or a white man and his Fiipina wie osther ega batte or ustody. In the courts deision, the at that thesurrogate was genetiay unreated to the hid and, not oinidenty,that she was o a visiby dierent rae gured prominenty.17

In these and other ases, geneti seetion amounts to raia se-

etion. Even in the absene o a geneti basis or rae, ARTs and theaws that have been impemented to govern their sae, purhase, anduse are pratied with rae in mind and, or the most part, ontinue tobe used to seure raia ikeness among (as opposed to dierene rom)parents and progeny. Given that this geneti manipuation is intendedto ensure rigid, reognizabe, and desirabe kinship strutures and theraia distintions that organize them, it seems ear that eugenis, de-ned by Franis Gaton, who oined the term in 1883 and dened it asthe siene o improving human stok by inreasing desirabes anddereasing undesirabes, did not die ater its atastrophi, i aied,impementation during the rst our deades o the twentieth entury.Rather, it is more aurate to say that it went dormant, ying in wait,ready to return with a vengeane one it had suessuy reashioned


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itse as what the critia Art Ensembe has desribed as the peret

ompement to the apitaist poitia-eonomi imperative. As memberso this gueria art group argue in their maniesto, Flesh Machine, inthe pratie o ARTs, eugenis are oered as just another ommodityunder the egitimized authority o media institutions, a situation thatnormaizes and naturaizes the purhase and impementation o ARTs,and, I woud add, one that onsoidates the eugeni, or more apty, thegenetiized ideas o rae that have supposedy been banished.18 Andthus, athough it has been argued that ARTs rework normative notionso kinship and amiy (witness, or exampe, the inreasing numbers o

gay oupes using donor gestationa surrogates, esbian parents usingartiia insemination, and heterosexua singe and oder women usingbiotehnoogies to reate hidren and aternative househod orms), wemust aso aknowedge that the raia dynamis neessariy engagedeah time ARTS are pratied are at best uninterrogated and at worstativey promoted under the guise o onsumer hoie.19

To be sure, unpreedented modaities o inter-raia reprodutivereiproity might sti be enabed by ARTs, but to date these have been too sedom pursued. Athough we might hope that time-worn

raia hierarhies woud not infet the hoies made as individuasand oupes pratie reprodution and onsume biotehnoogia pro-edures and geneti materias, in our supposedy post-raia moment,biotehnoogia reprodution has proven to be ony as anti-raist as thearger soia, poitia, and eonomi ontexts o its reationontextsthat our dominant praties o biotehnoogia reprodution paradoxi-ay serve to onsoidate.

II. Raia Aura

The idea that the same tehnoogies that might potentiay be usedor iberatory, even anti-raist ends an and are a too oten used tomaintain oppressive soia hierarhies is one whose examination hashistoria preedent in the 1930s. Amidst the rise o the Third Reihand just prior to the imposition o genoida Nazi eugeni poiiesimpemented in the name o raia hygiene and rae improvement,Marxist theorist Water Benjamin sought to understand how the new

tehnoogies o reprodution by whih he was surrounded were ater-ing both human sense pereption and poitia onsiousness. AthoughBenjamins now amous essay, The Work o Art in the Age o MehaniaReprodution, examined m and photography and oud not possiby


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have aounted or ARTs as they exist today, in this setion I expore

how and why Benjamins anaysis o the utura and ideoogia eetso the reprodutive tehnoogies by whih he was surrounded is reevantto the anaysis o the biotehnoogies by whih we are surrounded inour supposedy post-raia age. 20 Athough we an imn the paradoxthat onronts usthe simutaneous insistene on the obsoesene orae and the aeerated pratie o raia distintion through the useo biotehnoogyin order to theorize this paradox and, as importanty,to understand how it produes an array o utura and ideoogiaeets that ater our pereption o rae, reprodution, and kinship, a

return to Benjamin is both timey and poitiay useu.In The Work o Art Benjamins entra insight is that hanges

in the mode o prodution are maniest in transormations in uturaprodution and, in turn, in human sense pereption. As he expains,tehnoogia deveopments struture the transormation o uture,inuding the prodution o the artisti objets and orms avaiabeto the masses. In so doing, they ater the mass pereption o rea-itynothing ess than how we oetivey apprehend our word. Inpartiuar, the reprodutive tehnoogies o photography and m that

most onerned Benjamin do this in three distint ways: 1) they aptureimages that esape natura vision through various tehniques, inud-ing the ose-up, mi editing, and sow motion; 2) they put opieso the origina objet into situations that woud be out o reah othe origina through wide dissemination, thus exposing art to a massviewership rather than soey to an eite or seet one; and 3) theyenabe the art work and the viewer to meet haway. By this astpoint, Benjamin suggests that reprodutive tehnoogies aow viewersto engage in a oneptua exhange that eads to the eevation o the

viewer as a ritia observer (as opposed to a passive reipient) oartisti representations eading aso to a depreiation o the quaity othe presene o the origina work o art, a diminishment o the artworks authority as historia testimony.21

The ateration o human sense pereption enabed by tehnoo-gies o mehania reprodution did not, however, produe a singuarpoitia eet. Rather, muh to Benjamins dismay, the impat ohanges in pereption heraded by m and photography ay preari-ousy in the baane. And thus, writing on the eve o Word War II,Benjamins guiding poitia question had to do with whether thework o art and new mode o pereption that it enabed woud beused to oment human oppression or iberation or, in the terms o hisday, asism or ommunism. On the one hand, when made innitey


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reproduibe and thus avaiabe or onsumption by the masses, m

and photography possessed the potentia to demoratize soiety bymaking viewers into ritis and giving them an experiene o ritiaand iberatory oetivity. On the other hand, m and photographyand the sense pereption they enabed were ripe or expoitation bythe asist ideoogy mahine eager to reate a ompiant mass, bindto its own expoitation.

The urgeny o Benjamins essay thus stemmed rom his desire toadvoate or the iberatory potentia o mehania reproduibiity androm his hopeu sense that it was sti possibe to appropriate repro-

dutive tehnoogy and turn it away rom asist ends. In his essaysamous epiogue, he starky renders the stakes o his argument:

The ogia resut o Fasism is the introdution o aesthetis intopoitia ie. The vioation o the masses, whom Fasism, with itsFhrer ut, ores to their knees, has its ounterpart in the vioation o[a tehnoogia] apparatus whih is pressed into prodution o rituavaues . . . A eorts to render poitis aestheti uminate in onething: war . . . Ony war makes it possibe to mobiize a o todays

tehnia resoures whie maintaining the property system.22

Aording to Benjamin, Fasism aesthetiizes poitis, using m andphotography as required. Through vioation o an [tehnoogia] ap-paratus, Fasism mobiizes the masses to maintain their own proetari-anization and the prevaiing property system. Fasist art (the exampeBenjamin gives is that o Itaian Futurist, Frano Marinetti) suppiesgratiation o a sense pereption that has been hanged by tehno-ogy to suh an extreme degree that soiety an experiene its own

destrution as an aestheti peasure o the rst order.23 Aternativey,iberatory utura orms (those spawned by a ritique o the prevaiingproperty system) respond to hanges in pereption by poitiizing art.24In other words, Benjamin tighty binds human iberation to partiuarorms o artisti prodution. In his view, radia poitis require artthat refets and rerats transormations in the mode o produtionand pereption, and hannes these hanges into ritia onsiousness,whih, or Benjamin, was tantamount to ass onsiousness.

Those o us iving in the United States nd ourseves in anunpreedented situation in terms o the partiuar variety o reprodu-tive tehnoogies by whih we are surroundedand, here, I reer notto the tehnoogies o m, photography, or war o whih Benjaminwrote, but rather to the poweru biotehnoogies that I have aready


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desribedthose whih, through use, transorm our pereption o

bioogia ie itse. Works o art, as we as a wide range o popuarutura representations produed within the ontext o the proierationo these biotehnoogies revea unpreedented transormations in ourpereption o rae, reprodution, and kinship.25 Indeed, ontemporaryart responsive to and produtive o hanges in our pereption reveasto us the manner in whih we hang in the baane, poised betweenan oppressive eugeni soia order and an anti-raist one. On the onehand, suh art an and oten does aesthetiize rae, rendering it anever more reied onept. On the other hand, at the best o times,

suh art reveas the paradox o our supposedy post-raia moment,exposing to us the pitas o those post-raia arguments that insist thatgeneti siene and reason have moved us beyond rae and thereore beyond raism.

Beore aunhing into a disussion o ontemporary art, it is im-portant to aknowedge that the idea that art has been transormed bynew tehnoogies is not partiuary nove. Art historians and uturaritis have demonstrated that new orms o image making, supture,instaation, interative omputer-based perormane, and bioart (art

that empoys biotehnoogy in its reation and ontent) are urrentyommonpae.26 It is aso noteworthy that Benjamin has aready beeninvoked to demonstrate the existene o emergent artisti orms re-sponsive to the new mode o prodution.27 As important as suh worko demonstration is, however, this artie departs rom it in order toexpore not ony how this new art is shaped by tehnoogy but asohow it untions to reate ritia awareness o biotehnoogy, partiu-ary by registering the paradoxia pereption o rae that haraterizesour biotehnoogia age.

In order to understand the ritia work that art does, one Benja-minian onept above others is germane. I reer to aura, the breatho authentiity that reedes when tehnoogiay reprodued objetsrepae hand made ones. Athough it reedes, ruiay, the desire oraura and thus its speter never disappears. As Benjamin expains it, whenthe work o art o a previous age omes into ontat with that whihis mehaniay reprodued, pereption o the ormer is transormed:

The situations into whih the produt o mehania reprodution an be brought may not touh the atua work o art, yet the quaity oits presene is aways depreiated. . . . In the ase o the art objet,a most sensitive nueusnamey, its authentiityis interered with.. . . The authentiity o a thing is the essene o a that is trans-


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missibe rom its beginning, ranging rom its substantive duration

to its testimony to the history whih it has experiened. . . . And[thus] what is reay jeopardized when the historia testimony isaeted is the authority o the objet. . . .

One might subsume the eiminated eement in the term auraand go on to say: that whih withers in the age o mehaniareprodution is the aura o the work o art.28

Aura is initiay assoiated with historia testimony, authority, andauthentiity. However, ater rst introduing the onept in this passage,

Benjamin ontinuay returns to, augments, and reworks it so that auraeventuay beomes assoiated not ony with these attributes but asowith the pretense o their presene, with their spetra eet. In otherwords, whie aura initiay names that whih withers or deays,it ater omes to name that whih is artiiay produed to repaeor -in where a oss o authority or authentiity is identied oret. Struturay akin to the Derridian suppement, aura identies whatis aking, what has been ost, what has withered, or what has beenobsured, and, it simutaneousy indiates the shape o the whoe, the

entity in its entirety prior to this ak, oss, or diminishment.29In the bodest ormuation, I am suggesting an unanny orrespon-

dene between aura, as Benjamin deveops it, and the onept o raethat iruates in our supposedy post-raia times: The present denia othe bioogia existene o rae shapes a invoations o rae, eetiveymaking bioogia rae aurati eah and every time it appears. In thissense, aura and rae in the present ontext are not simpy anaogous;rather, rae has emerged as onstitutivey aurati within ontemporaryuture. Just as notions o hand-madeness, authority, and uniqueness

haunt the mehaniay produed objet o whih Benjamin wrote,rendering aura spetra, notions o rae as a bioogia, geneti, andsientiay quantiabe essene haunt the biotehnoogia pratiesand produts that this essay desribes, rendering rae spetra. Put di-erenty, ike aura or Benjamin, rae, or us, is present and absentitis rendered obsoete by the new orms o geneti knowedge, and itis simutaneousy reinvigorated when biotehnoogia proedures andthe neessary geneti materias are used. In this itera and pratiasense, it an be argued that as the paradoxia authentiity o theart objet in an age o mehania reproduibiity is aptured by andondensed in the onept o aura, the paradoxia persistene o raein our supposedy post-raia moment is aptured and ondensed ina onept I a raia aura.


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For Benjamin, aura at rst appears to be a desriptive onept,

but beomes, over the ourse o his essay, an inreasingy ritia one.This shit is evident in his disussion o m. In the gure o the mstar, the ontraditory maniestations o auraas authenti on the onehand, and as a veneer o authentiity on the otheronverge, reveaingaura to be present in the orm o its negation, a spetra maniesta-tion o a onged or originaity, authority, and uniqueness and aso atone an instrument o poitia oppression. As Benjamin expains, Them responds to the shriveing o the aura with an artiia buid-upo the personaity outside the studio.30 As i to ompensate or the

at that m is the reprodutive tehnoogy that might potentiaydestroy aura, m paradoxiay gives bak to the audiene the veneeror eeing o aura in the orm o the ut o the movie star. But asBenjamin yniay notes, we shoud not be deeived by the git thatm proers: the ut o the movie star, ostered by the money o them industry, preserves not the unique aura o the person but [rather]the spe o the personaity, the phony spe o a ommodity31 Theut o the m star moies the masses to their aienation rom thetehnoogies by whih they are surrounded; instead o aowing them to

oupy a ritia posture in reation to these tehnoogies, the produtiono the veneer o aura, o its phony spe, opens m up to Fasistinstrumentaization. In short, as the pretense o aura paies viewers,it numbs onsiousness to expoitation, and it oneas the iberatorypotentia embedded in m and the new orms o pereption that thispartiuar reprodutive tehnoogy might otherwise enabe.32

I the viewers aiure to ritiay apprehend the deine o auraand aeptane o the phony spe o the ommodity as its substi-tute negates ms radia potentia, it woud seem to oow that the

onverseritia apprehension o auras demiseoud atuaize theradia potentia o art in a mehania age. And it is in this sense thatBenjamin goes on to argue that the deay o aura is not neessariy a bad thing; rather, it is preisey what opens up spae or ritia ap-prehension o the mehanism by whih the new mehania tehnoogiestransorm pereption.33 The trik, as Benjamin understood, was not toengage in a orm o romanti anti-apitaism that too readiy dismissedthe deay o aura as a human tragedy. Rather, the trik was to ayhod o auras poitia potentia to raise onsiousness about hangesin the mode o prodution. In putting the deay o aura on dispay,works o art enabe onsiousness o the transormation in pereptiono whih the deay o aura is the prinipa eet.

From suh a vantage point it beomes ear that aura residesno more on the side o human oppression or iberation than do the


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tehnoogies whose emergene preipitates auras demise. Rather, the

dierene between art that oments human oppression and art thatpaves the way or iberation ies in the dierene between art thatovers over the deay o aura and art that ritiay apprehends itsdoubeness or makes auras spetra presene visibe. As Benjaminexpains, the m or photograph either trains us in apprehension oour new reationship to tehnoogy and to hanges in our mode opereption, or, aternativey, it mysties this reationship, shrouding itin the phony spe o the ommodity and aimating us to our ex-poitation. Indeed, arts iberatory untion resides in its abiity to put

aura on dispay as a vestigia presene, as a speter, as the ue tothe transormations in the mode o prodution that preipitate hangesin our pereption.

In the epigraph I used to begin this essay, Pau Giroy, perhapsunwittingy, makes a very Benjaminian point about rae: The meaningo raia dierene is itse being hanged as the reationship betweenhuman beings and nature is reonstruted by the impat o the DNArevoution,34 he writes. In the spirit o Benjaminian ritique, Giroygoes on to onude the thought not by pessimistiay noting that

rae has beome irreduiby genetiized and ommodied, but rather by observing that the transormation in the onept o rae that has been preipitated by new sienti advanes and tehnoogies atuayears spae or a iberatory reoneptuaization o the onept o rae.Urging us, his readers, to try to take possession o the prooundtransormation that has been wrought by the DNA revoution, hesuggests that we somehow set it to work against the tainted ogithat produed it.35 Indeed, it an be argued that, ike Benjamin beorehim, Giroy sees the prodution o aura, in this ase raia aura, as a

poitia opportunity.Finay, it is in thinking about the ritia work that art produed

in the ontext o rapid transormation in the mode o (re)produtiondoes that the questions about artisti prodution most pertinent to our biotehnoogia age nay take orm: How does ontemporary art a-ow or apprehension o hanges in our pereption o rae, reprodu-tion, and kinship produed by the new biotehnoogies? How does itaiitate apprehension o the deay o raia aura and the simutaneouspersistene o its phony spe? How does art produed in an age o biotehnoogia reprodution poitiize aesthetis by showing us howwe might set to work the proound transormations we are witnessingagainst the tainted ogi that produed them?

like the aura o originaity and uniqueness o whih Benjaminwrote, raia aura haunts us and hides rom us, proierates and withers.


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And, it is preisey or this reason that ontemporary art that engages

raia aura possesses the potentia to revea to us the paradoxia natureo rae in our supposedy post-raia moment, or suh art reveastransormations in our pereptions o rae, reprodution, and kinshipand, ideay, atayzes ritia awareness o the iberatory nature o thesepereptionsnot east, our awareness that the post-raia onsensus thathas been at one so destrutive o hard won orms o raia justie,so seemingy authoritative, and so inontestaby dominant, is in atounded upon paradoxiay unstabe sienti oundations.

III. The Work Art Does

In the ast deade, as researh on the human genome has a-eerated and a genomis industry has emerged, as the denia o theexistene o raia dierene has ome to hod sway, art has begun tomeditate hanges in pereption o rae by engaging a gamut o issues,inuding DNA sequening and identiation, geneti ommodiationand patenting, transgenis and oning, and the sae and purhase

o ARTs and the materias they require.36

In short, ontemporary artmeditates on the range o biotehnoogia praties that have pre-ipitated the transormation in our pereptions o rae, reprodution,and kinship. And whie it is ear that art is not the ony or evenneessariy the privieged utura orm that might perorm the worko ritique, Benjamins initia insight about art as ritia too remainspertinent, aowing us to see raes spetra eetsnothing ess thanthe existene o raia aura. Athough the works o art I examine in thisonuding setion do not espouse or promote a unied raia poitis,

they exhibit a shared sensitivity to transormations in the mode oprodution and thus possess the ritia edge that the demise o auraenabes. In this important way, they oaborate in earing spae ornew thinking about rae, generating ritia awareness o the orm(s)o raia onsiousness that might now beome possibe but, as o yet,remain argey emergent.

Pau Vanouses Reative Veoity Insription Devie (RVID) exudesraia aura both by showing raes easy reanimation as a bioogia,geneti entity and by doumenting transormations in the dominant

thinking about rae heraded by genomis. As a untioning sieneprojet, RVID sits uneasiy on the borderine between sienti ex-periment, art instaation, and interative perormane. The piee wasommissioned by Seattes Henry Gaery, or Gene(sis), a traveing exhibit


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that juxtaposed works by twenty-six artists or whom the aeerated

pae o geneti researh and the potentia soio-utura impat o re-ent sienti deveopments on our daiy ives has been the prinipaimaginative spark.37 RVID uses DNA ragments extrated rom ourmembers o Vanouses mutiraia Jamaian/white amiy to produe thesembane o a road rae among ompeting amiy members whosegeneti materias move through a omputer-reguated separation geeeriy bathed in utra-vioet ight [See Figure 1]. A amera situated abovethe gowing ge tray through whih ragments o Vanouses DNA andthat o his biraia sister, brown Jamaian mother, and white ather

trave, projets the rae in progress onto an iuminated wa dispaythat indiates the reative position o eah DNA ragment as it makesit way through the medium, propeed by a variabe eetria urrentwhose strength is manipuated by viewer/partiipants who interatwith the experiment through an attahed omputer termina.

The question o the genetis o rae is entra to the narrative thataompanies RVID and desribes the experiment in progress. At thesame time, rae is animated as a eugeni oneption o ineriority orsuperiority through Vanouses paement o an open opy o chares

B. Davenports 1929 trat, Race Crossing in Jamaica, on the same tabe asthe ge tray. Davenport, one o the ounders o the Amerian eugenismovement, was amous or promoting the beie that so-aed raiamixing produed inerior progeny, individuas who were weaker inonstitution and apaity than either o their raiay pure and thussuperior parents. As Race Crossings paement on the sienti tabeimpies, Davenports work might be used to expain (as it has in thepast) the reative suess o peope o dierent raes and raiamixtures in the ie-rae. And yet, the point o RVID is at one

to introdue suh raia thinking and to simutaneousy onound theeugeni assumptions on whih the road rae in progress might be based. As beomes ear to the viewer who reads the ommentarythat aompanies the instaation, a given raes outome in the roadrae that has been set up by the experiment is determined not bythe assumed rae o the DNA ragment, but rather by the amounto eetria urrent passed through the ge and by the ength o theragment (whih has been randomy snipped). Put dierenty, RVIDompes us to operationaize buried assumptions about the genetiso rae as we enounter ontemporary geneti representations and toonront these buried assumptions as eugeni in origin. In this way itaows us to beome aware o the ease with whih rae an be madeto ook geneti when in at, as genetiists onur, it is not. Just as


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the phony spe o the sreen star is animated in the Hoywood m,so too is the phony spe o rae or the spetra presene o raiaaura animated in RVID. As Vanouse esewhere expains, he reateda rae about rae to demonstrate the idea that any partiuar raeor mixture is genetiay inerior or superioraster, more agieor ompetitiveis a raist ruse. Raia bioogy ontinues to struture

our thinking in a supposedy post-raia moment, prinipay throughthe historia sedimentation o eugenis that ontinues to burden ourimaginations.38 As RVID reveas, Davenports eugeni thinking iseortessy reanimated or viewers by a road rae among variousyraed geneti materias, demonstrating that we ontinue to ode raeas a geneti essene through our daiy interations with biotehnoogyeven as the dominant uture announes the triumph o the post-raiaonsensus.

The raia aura whose spetra presene dynamizes Vanouses

RVID aso dynamizes ontemporary photographi work. ZhangHuans series o nine se-portraits, Famiy Tree (2000), douments aperormane in whih he uses his own ae as a anvas upon whihto insribe, in chinese haraters, amiiar names and, most visiby, awe-known chinese proverb about a ooish mans beie in the power

Figure 1. Instaation o Pau Vanouses Reative Veoity Insription Devie (RVID),Henry Art Gaery, Seatte 2002. courtesy o the artist.


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o the generations to overome seemingy insurmountabe obstaes and

the ooish mans insistene on the power o amiia geneaogy ando dediated sons and grandsons [See Figure 2].39 In this way, Zhangeetivey reates a new visua voabuary or exporing questions o beonging and geneaogia onnetion: Zhangs portraits inrementaydoument the gradua ousion o his visage as it is insribed with somuh bak ink that the writing overs over his skin and visiby Asianeatures. By the ast three photographs in his series, as the aigraphyrenders his ae and the writing itse unreadabe, he sueeds in reap-propriating ideas o both persona identity and amiia geneaogy: in

baking himse out, he eetivey reuses to (dis)over himse as aninheritor o an august chinese ineage and instead provokes viewersto reonsider the presumed nationa, raia, and amiia desent thatmight be most readiy attributed to Zhang based on phenotype and onhis se-identiation as chinese. As Zhang observes on his website, inthis work that speaks about a amiy story, a spirit o amiy, by theend o the day o the perormane reorded in these nine photographiimagesthat is, ater aigraphy baks out his visageI annot tewho I am. My identity has disappeared.40 In Famiy Tree, Zhang

uses his body, as Vanouse used the bodies o himse and his amiyin RVID (in this ase Zhangs ae rather than a ragment o hisDNA), to omment on the superiaity o ontemporary raia andutura meaning making; on its misguided dependene on od, outwornraia, nationa, and utura sripts; on the presumed visibiity o raiaand nationa identity; and on the poverty o the idea that the searhor beonging and geneaogia desent an revea to us unknown, buried truths about our seves. Athough it never expiity engagesthe issue o genetis and rae, in ommenting as it does on unantii-

pated inheritane, Zhangs bakae neaty exposes the paradox o thepost-raia onsensus. It at one orroborates the idea o humanitysshared Arian originsthe thesis proposed by popuation genetiistswho study patterns o human migration through study o DNAandthe idea that this thesis is itse a orm o bakae, a phony spethat genetiizes rae and overs over other saient truths about ourorigins that might be, and in some instanes have been, onstrutedas we reate our ideas o amiia and raia desent and our senseo beonging in the word.

As in RVID and Famiy Tree, Danie lees photographiseries Judgment, animates raia aura through the speter o geneaogygone awry, in partiuar through the speter o raiaized interspeiesmixture.41Judgment omprises eeven poster size digita -prints o


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human/non-human anima hybrids that gaze resoutey out at viewers.

These reatures, a uratoria paque inorms, are the judge, jury, andguards who omprise the mythoogia ourt under the earth wherethe one-hundred-and-eight types o existent beings, inuding human beings, are judged ater death.42 In a ases, lees hybrids are pheno-typi omposites o amiiar animas and peope o oor (mosty EastAsians), individuas whose otherness is expressed through sartoriastye, skin tone, aia eature, and hair. For instane, juror numbersix, leopard Spirit, is asianized by his chinese jaket, eongatedeyes, and the stereotypia gesture he assumes, hands patienty oded

behind his bak [See Figure 3].In these and a his other portraits o the ourt, lees raiaized

and animaized images put raia aura on dispay in the orm o nine-teenth entury sienti ideas about hybridization and destrution opurity o orm. In this way lees images indiate the extent to whiha modern disussions o hybridity are intrinsiay raiaized, whetheror not rae is expiity oregrounded, or, by the midde o the nine-teenth entury, ideas about mixed progeny as degenerate and aboutdegeneration as a onsequene o devoution to a more animaized

and, thus, ess iviized and ess human state were ommonpae.Indeed, lees work reminds us that in the argey unontested raiasiene o the nineteenth entury (that whih preeded Davenportseugeni theories and rom whih he borrowed), ideas about raia mixingwere sited through ideas about the hybridization o speieshumanand non-human animassuh that interspeism and interraiaism werevirtuay interhangeabe. This was an espeiay poweru onfation inontexts suh as Amerian raia savery, in whih bak peope wereregarded as ess than uy human, as anima hatte. As the etymo-

ogy o the term Muatto indiates, rooted as it is in the word mue,the progeny o wayward reprodutions aross raia ines have a onghistory o portraya as sterie beings, inerior bends o inompatibeparts, be they donkey and horse or white and bak.43

In lees images the monstrosity o mixture reaizes its most robustexpression in ross-speies human/non-human anima mixture. However,est the ontemporary genomi resonane o lees human/non-humananima hybrids be overooked by viewers, in the gaery spae in whihlees Judgment series was on dispay, his work was juxtaposed by ura-tors with catherine chamers photographi series Transgenic Mice [SeeFigure 4]. chamers portraits o reatures suh as Obese Mouse andRhino Mouse, bown-up so they appear the size o todders, depitatua sienti speimens produed by ombining human DNA with


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Figure 2. Images rom Zhang Huans perormane and photographi series, Famiy

Tree 2000. courtesy o the artist.

mouse DNA. Suh mie are used in researh on a variety o humandiseases, with the most we known one, Ono-Mouse, deveopedto study aner. Athough rae is nowhere apparent in the maniestontent o chamers images, the juxtaposition o lees and chamershybrids produes a synergy that raiaizes the mie and simutaneousygenetiizes the hybrids that omprise lees ourt. In other words, whenbrought together, lees ourt and chamers mie maniest raia aurain the orm o overapping oneptions o mixture as monstrosity. Bygrabbing our attention and asinating our gaze, these very dierent


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Figure 3. Danie lees Juror No. 6 (leopard Spirit), part 4 in the 1994 series

Judgment. courtesy o the artist.

portraits oude to revea the origin o the reakishness they depit ina ombination o od, supposedy outmoded ideas about raia mixtureand very ontemporary ideas o transgenisand this is the ase, evenas the post-raia onsensus is onsoidated by the geneti siene thattes us that rae does not exist.

Perhaps one o the most striking eatures o chamers TransgenicMice is that it suggests that in a supposedy post-raia age evengenomi art without overt raia ontent is paradoxiay haunted by

raia aura. Indeed, works suh as this one show that the denia othe existene o the geneti reaity o rae is in at aompanied byraia aura; or, put dierenty, that in the ontext o post-raiaism,rae is aways aready present. In order to expore this ast point, thena work that this essay treats is one in whih rae is entirey ab-


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sent rom the maniest ontent o the work and yet one rom whih

raia aura emanates in espeiay poweru and instrutive ways. Ireer to Iigo Mangano-Ovaes The Garden o Delights, whih I wiargue, despite being devoid o maniest raia ontent, nonetheess ishaunted by raia aura and thus has the potentia to generate aware-ness o the paradoxia oneptuaization o rae and kinship in our biotehnoogia age, our supposedy post-raia moment. As we shasee, Garden animates both new and od ideas o hybridity through paywith orma paintery onventions, through historia itation, and noteast through ommentary about the art provided to viewers by the

urators o the gaeries in whih it has been dispayed.Garden, a series o orty-eight geneti portraits arranged in sixteen

groups o three, eah tited with a series o rst names (Armando,Maria, and Jak, Dan, Axe, and Sander, Jane, laurie, and Naomiand so orth), is abstrat and peasing to the eye, and in the origina,vibranty oored [See Figure 5]. As Ronn Patts uratoria ommentaryexpains, eah triptyh ontains an image o the geneti ngerprints othree peope: an individua asked by the artist to hoose two additionaindividuas to be simiary ngerprinted.44 Though it is not apparent

rom the uster o rst names that tite eah grouping o three genetiportraits, ommentary urther aries that some groups are omprisedo peope who are bioogiay reated, whie others are omprised oriends and overs. These groups, oten reerred to by the artist and

Figure 4. catherine chamers Rhino Mouse rom the photographi series Transgenic

Mice, 2000. courtesy o the artist.


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in the ritiism as amiies, are as oten reated through anity asthrough iation, and are as ikey to be queer as straight.45

Whie the overapping geneti images ead us to presume, or atthe very east to searh or visua ues indexing bioogia reatednessasearh ompeed by the at that the triptyhs are oor-oded so thateah amiy has its own dominant oor sheme distinguishing it romother amiiesour expetations are assiduousy, i quiety underut by our beuddement in the ae o the inadequate rst name titesand our onrontation with our own ak o inormation about how todeode these authoritative sienti images. As we gaze at the triptyhs,we are ored to onede that we do not possess the inormation thatwoud aow us to iner the ontent o the reationships so painyon dispay. In these triptyhs, the phenotypi evidene o reatednessthat we expet portraits to provide has been suppanted by abstrat,oor-oded graphis. Indeed, there is no obvious orreation betweensome invisibe phenotype that presumaby urks outside the portraits

Figure 5. Iigo Mangano-Ovae, carter Anna Dary rom The Garden o Delights,

1998. courtesy o the artist.


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rame and the highy visibe graphi oor and orm o eah geneti

ngerprint. The upshot is that we are ored to reaize that any ormo inormation about reatedness that we think we have diserned has,in at, been imposed on these abstrations by our imaginations. Putmore starky sti, Garden has the potentia to make us onsious othe at that when we are onronted with sientiay authoritativeimages that revea nothing to the inexpert eye about kinship or rae,our desire to read suh images in terms o aready existent sripts thatink amiiaity, genetis, and raia ikeness is determinative. In at,the desire is so strong that it is diut not to read the oor-oded

amiiaity o the triptyhs as a sign o geneti and, by extension, raiareatedness.

I raia aura is impiity animated by Garden through instigationo our desire to see evidene o reatedness among the members ooor-oded amiies, it is expiity integrated into the work throughtwo entra art historia preedents: the works namesake, HieronymusBoshs teenth entury triptyh The Garden o Earthly Delights, andeighteenth-entury Spanish casta, or aste, paintings. Boshs amouswork, whih depits the Antediuvian garden o Eden and the he

into whih are tossed the peasure seeking, sexuay debauhed, andot times monstrousy hybridized hidren that are the progeny o thewayward Eve, is not oinidentay housed in the Museo de Prado inMadrid, Mongano-Ovaes hidhood home.46 The three pane paint-ings (the et pane depits the Sixth Day and sins entry into theword, the midde pane depits ie in the garden o Eden, and theright pane he47) eary onstitutes a orma preedentit is atera a triptyh bearing a simiar name. But perhaps more importanty,it is a oneptua preedent that ouses, ike Garden, on sexuaity,

reprodution, and the possibiity o wayward mixture. As in leesJudgment and chamers Transgenic Mice, Boshs mixtures are otenaross speies. And, whie the hybrid ospring whom Bosh depitsare inrequenty raiaized as other than white, ats o raia mixingan be ound in the paintings detais: the bodies that sneak o intogiant eggs, am shes, and ruits to orniate and peasure themsevesin the abuous, seething, and sensuous midde pane o the paintingare mutiraia: white, Arian, and Semiti [See Figure 6]. Indeed,upon ose inspetion, Boshs word emerges as one popuated by beings who transgress a manner o borders, inuding those amongraes and those between human and non-human anima, anima andminera, and ie and death. And, it is the strange bodiy orms othese hybrid beings that embody and express their wikedness, theimpress o their unnatura begetting.48


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I Mangano-Ovae onjures the monstrosity o mixture with hisreerenes to Bosh, he undersores the raiaization o suh mon-

strosity through his invoation o asta paintings. Whie not triptyhsin the onventiona sense, asta paintings are omposites o threeportraitsmother, ather, and progenythat iustrate the resuts oraia mixing among Spanish, Arians, and Indians, the three prin-ipa groups who popuated Spains New Word oonies [See Figure7]. casta paintings, whih ome in groups o sixteen (most oten aseries o separate images, though oasionay a sixteen portraits areompied on a singe anvas), obey rigid orma protoos: ike eaho Mangano-Ovaes sixteen triptyhs, eah asta bears a tite, in this

ase one that identies, rather than oneas the raia mixture that isdepited (Spanish and Indian produe Mestizo, Spanish and Bakprodue Muato, Indian and Bak produe Zambo, and so orth).The oupings that asta paintings portray are arranged in ormaized,sequentia order beginning with mixtures invoving Spanish men and

Figure 6. Detai o an interraia enounter rom Hieronymus Boshs The Garden

o Earthly Delights, midde pane.


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women o oor, and onuding with mixtures that are the resut oprior admixtures (Mestizo and Muato produe castizo). Notaby,as progeny beome more raiay distant rom the pure Spanishtype, they are animaized and their soioeonomi status diminished.One tite aompanying an image o poor peasants expains, Arianand Native produe E lobo, another onrms, Mestizo and Nativeprodue la coyote. When the most dangerousy wayward progenyare represented in asta painting, they are given aniu names suh astente en el aire (hod-yourse-in-mid-air) and no te entiendo (I-dont-understand-you), as i in the at o abeing hybrid beings it woud be possibe to produe the missing understanding o the mixed rae

Figure 7. A asta painting divided into sixteen portraits o interraia pairs and their

progeny.


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body, or perhaps to prevent those whose admixture was exeedingy

ompex rom fying away (under over o an uninteigibe phenotype)and thus reeing themseves rom the aste system atogether. As theoremost riti o asta paintings, Iona Katzew, expains, these imagesprodued by the Spanish or export bak to the metropoe were intendedto taxonomize, organize, and in this way exert ontro over the inter-raia reprodutive praties germane to the oonies. They were notmeant to onvey harmonious oexistene o raes but rather to serveas a orm o ideoogia popuation ontroas a reassuring reminderto oonia subjets and the Spanish crown that Mexio was a raiay

hierarhia soiety in whih eah group oupied an identiabe andthus ontroabe raia and soioeonomi nihe.49

In Mangano-Ovaes hands, Boshs hybrids and the raiay-mixed progeny depited in asta paintings are redeemed. Individuasin his triptyhs dene themseves and reate their amiies ratherthan being dened or reated by them. Mixture, i it an be saidto exist, appears not as monstrous hybridity but rather as harmoniousabstration, as a peasing bend o oor and ight, pattern and orm.And yet, it is preisey the peasure and superia ease with whih

we view Mangano-Ovaes triptyhs that shoud give us pause. Forone attuned to the reationship o their smooth suraes to the ideo-ogiay harged asta paintings on whih they omment, we are abeto reognize that, athough rae is nowhere evident in the maniestontent o these geneti images, raia aura haunts them, urking beowtheir gossy suraes not ony in our imaginations but aso in theirhistory, orm, and message. In other words, athough these triptyhsonvey identity as i it atuay were post-raia, as i an individuasDNA ngerprint and raia identity did not oinide within the popuar

imagination, and, thus, as i the announement o the triumph o thepost-raia onsensus were not in at paradoxia, they aso suggest thatsmooth, seamess post-raiaism is deepy phantasmagoria fawedidea in any ontext burdened by histories o raia taxonomizing,ontainment, and ontro. Utimatey, the idea o post-raiaism is herereveaed to be as unattainabe as the antediuvian Garden o EarthyDeights to whih we an no onger return or to whih we an onyreturn in our imaginations.

On quik inspetion o Boshs triptyh it an seem as i a iswe with the avorting beings who popuate the garden; on oserinspetion it is ear, starting rom the rst pane depiting Eden asa pae popuated by three-headed saamanders and two-egged dogs,that something is deepy, darky, amiss. Simiary, on the surae, we


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gain a sense o order rom Mangano-Ovaes Garden o Delights. And

yet, as his abandonment o Earthy in the tite borrowed rom Boshindiates, there is something quite unearthy about the post-raia wordthat this updated Garden depits. This biotehnoogia wordourwordis one in whih individua identity has been redued to oor-oded DNA ngerprints, to marks that over over and utimatey severthe viewer rom ritia onsiousness o the ompex manner in whihwe ontinue to genetiize rae and raiaize genetis through our di-ret pratie o biotehnoogy or, at the very east, through our taitpartiipation in the post-raia onsensus.50 Indeed, geneti portraiture,

whie seemingy the most aurate o a orms o portraiturethe ormthat onveys to us what ies inside our bodies rather than on theirsuraesatuay obsures rom view the raia meanings and histori-ay sedimented narratives that neessariy animate our imaginationsand inorm the hoies that we make as we partiipate in a word inwhih biotehnoogia praties make DNA portraiture possibe. Andthus it is utimatey in and through the prodution o raia aura thatMangano-Ovaes triptyhs ear spae or awareness o transorma-tion o our mode o pereption o rae, o the existene o rae as a

spetra presene, and thus o the ontraditory raia meanings thatthe new mode o biotehnoogia reprodution augurs.

Even as Benjamin oretod the deay o aura in the age o theartworks mehania reproduibiity, he insisted that the same tehnoo-gies that were being used to aesthetiize poitis and promote Fasism,might aso have an apotropai untionthat is, they might enabe thespetator to beome ritia o the transormation o pereption that wasunderway.51 We might aso disern a desire or suh a ritia open-ing in Pau Giroys expressed hope that the DNA revoution might

be set to work in dismanting rather than shoring up various ormso raia essentiaism and eugenis. We an thus update Benjaminsormuation and adopt Giroys hope: the same tehnoogies that are being used to aesthetiize genetis and promote post-raiaism, mightaso have an apotropai untionthat is, they might enabe ritiaapprehension o raia aura and ritia assessment o our supposedypost-raia moment. Put dierenty, the biotehnoogies by whih weare surrounded might enabe reaization o the raia aura that ema-nates rom ontemporary art as an anti-raist too in an age in whih bioogia rae is said to no onger exist, but in whih biotehnoogyontinues to be routiney used to generate a too amiiar raia mean-ings and raiaized soia strutures. Indeed, using art to oate theraia aura that haunts ontemporary uture may we onstitute a rst


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move toward generating ritia awareness o the transormation in the

mode o pereption that is now underway. For, athough rae may noonger be viewed as a bioogia, geneti reaity, it is ear that i wedispense with rae as a meaningu ategory o soia identity and atoo o radia poitis, we wi have ost the opportunity to ome toterms with the paradoxes that struture our pratie o biotehnoogyin a biotehnoogia age neessariy aden by od raist sripts. In thissense, in the present and the oreseeabe uture, art an be a too oanti-raist poitis as ong as it enabes us to trak raia auras spetrapresene and to vigianty keep rae in view, i not in the maniest

ontent o the artwork itse.

NOTES

1. Rihard lewontin is requenty ited as the rst to present the ase. Ashe argued, there is a statistiay insigniant .02 perent dierene in the genetimake-up o peope o dierent raes, whie a arger perent dierene an oten be ound among peope o the same rae. lewontins work was brought to theattention o humanists by phiosopher Anthony Kwame Appiah in his infuentia

artie, The Unompeted Argument: Du Bois and the Iusion o Rae. Numer-ous sientists and sienti popuarizers advane what I am aing the post-raiaonsensus. See, among others, cavai-Sorza, Genes, Peoples, and Languages; Ridey,Genome: The Autobiography o a Species in 23 Chapters; Jones, The Language o Genes:Solving the Mysteries o Our Genetic Past, Present and Future; and Owens and King,Genomi Views o Human History.

2. Pau Giroy was among the rst to haraterize the urrent moment aspost-raia. Notaby, the book in whih he does so wafes between advoayo what he dubs the new post-raia humanism and ritique o the imits o ananti-raist poitis that attempts to move us beyond raism by moving us beyondrae. See Giroy, Against Race: Imaging Political Culture Beyond the Color Line. Otherpundits argue with ar ess ambivaene that the move beyond rae wi ure the

reportedy divisive armation o dierene resuting rom armative ation and/ormutiuturaism. See, or exampe, Hoinger, Postethnic America: Beyond Multicultur-alism; cose, Color-Blind: Seeing Beyond Race in a Race-Obsessed World; Smith, CivicIdeals: Conficting Visions o Citizenship in U.S. History; and Water Benn Mihaes, TheTrouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality.

3. See Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States rom the 1960sto the 1980s. In paing oorbindness and post-raiaism on a ontinuum I do notmean to obsure the historia speiity o these disourses, even as I suggest theway in whih the atter emerges rom the ormer as the onsensus is onsoidated:oorbindness, the term preerred by Omi and Winant, names the post-war onsensusand is keyed to postwar iberaism and ibera humanism; post-raiaism, a moreperniious orm o oorbind reasoning that has been used to dismante armative

ation and other rae based orms o soia justie is keyed to neo-iberaism.4. See Angier, Do Raes Dier?; and Bamshad and Osen, Does Rae

Exist.5. The ase promise o this onsumer produt indexes the vexed work o the

Human Genome Diversity Projet (HGDP) whih sought to use genomis to map


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human diversity and origins but ran aground beause o the projets inabiity toome up with a assiation shema apabe o grapping with the shiting meanings

o rae and popuation as these terms o desription ross disipinary domainswithin aademia and ross between aademia and the arger soia ed. See Reardon,Race to the Finish: Identity and Governance in an Age o Genomics; Wad, Bood andStories; and Marks, Were Going to Te These Peope Who They Reay Are.

6. See Harmon, Baks Pin Hope; Harmon, Seeking Anestry; and Harmon,Whos Your Great-Great-Great-Great-Granddaddy?

7. Duster, Rae and Reiation in Siene. For disussion o probems withrae-based mediine see Wad, Bood and Stories. For arguments or and againstthe use o rae in media researh see Sankar, cho, condit, et a., Geneti Re-searh and Heath Disparities; Henig, The Genome in Bak and White; coins,What We Do; Kahn, Getting Numbers Right; and Rish, Burhard, Ziv, andTang, categorization o Humans. Notaby, the o-ounders o the human genomesequene disagree: In Henig, The Genome in Bak and White, 50, craig Venter,ormer president o ceera, the private ompany that ompeted with the NationaHuman Genome Researh Institute in sequening the genome, argues that the mapreveas the obsoesene o rae as useu sienti ategory; Franis S. coins, thehead o the Institute, takes the opposing position.

8. Duster, Rae and Reiation in Siene. As Duster expains, sientistsinsistene on use o rae in the study o disease prevaene and treatment amountsto mispaed onreteness, a depoyment o raia ategories as i they were im-mutabe in nature and soiety.

9. Kaiser, Arian Amerian Popuation Biobank Proposed, 1485.10. Spar, The Baby Business, 12.

11. Frankin, Postmodern Proreation, 338.12. Weinbaum, Wayward Reproductions.13. See Ordover, American Eugenics; and Keves, In the Name o Eugenics.14. See Ragon, Surrogate Motherhood and O likeness and Dierene.15. Egan, Wanted: A Few Good Sperm. As one white woman expains o her

sperm seetion: I woud probaby hoose somebody with a darker skin oor soI dont have to sather sunbok on my kid a the time. I want it to be a heathymix . . . Mutts are aways the riendy ones, the inteigent ones, the ones whodont bark and have a good harater. As an Arian Amerian woman notes inexpaining her seetion, latino sperm wi enabe her hid to have ighter skinand nonkinky hair.

16. See Roberts, Killing the Black Body, 251.

17. Grayson, Mediating Intimay.18. critia Art Ensembe, Flesh Machine, 122.19. On urtaiment o the potentiay radia reongurations o rae and kinship

by ARTs see cussins, Produing Reprodution and Frankin, Embodied Progress.20. See Benjamin, The Work o Art. Notaby, Benjamins newy transated

and oeted works (Harvard University Press) present severa versions o this essay.Some Benjamin shoars, partiuary Miriam Hansen, have argued or treating earierversions in whih Benjamins ous on m is more sustained and his exporationo aura more open ended. Here I use the most ot read version in order to bringin the greatest number o readers, but note that my anaysis o aura draws onHansens work with textua variants. See Hansen, Room-or-Pay.

21. Benjamin, The Work o Art, 220221.

22. Ibid, 241.23. Ibid, 242.24. Ibid.25. In this paper I imit myse to disussion o ontemporary artisti produ-

tion that is widey aknowedged as art by the art ritia estabishment. In thearger book projet o whih this essay is a part, I extend my disussion to popuar


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utura prodution, inuding ontemporary m and pup tion. See Weinbaum,The New Biologic: Human Reproduction, Transnationalism, Cultural Critique.

26. See Anker and Nekin, The Molecular Gaze; Wison, Inormation Arts; andHed, Gene(sis).

27. W. J. T. Mithe returns to Benjamin to understand artisti prodution ina bioyberneti age. Whie I am sympatheti to the spirit o Mithes inquiry, hisous on bioybernetis oreoses treatment o the transormation in raia pereptionthat onerns me here and tends to neget Benjamins primary onern: reprodution.See Mithe, The Work o Art in the Age o Bioyberneti Reprodution.

28. Benjamin, The Work o Art, 221.29. See Derrida, O Grammatology.30. Benjamin, The Work o Art, 231.31. Ibid.32. As Benjamin notes, and as Benjamin shoars onur, aura needs to be

understood as intimatey reated to the etish harater o the ommodity. Aurais simiar to the etish in that it overs over the expoitation o abor and aborssoia vaue, and is aso that whih must be ritiay interpreted in order or po-itia onsiousness o expoitation and oetivity to be gained. See Buk-Morss,The Dialectics o Seeing.

33. This earing o spae that aompanies the deay o aura is akin to whatMiriam Hansen reers to as room-or-pay, or what Benjamin as Spiel-Raum. SeeHansen, Room-or-Pay, 616.

34. Giroy, Against Race, 15.35. Ibid.36. See Mado, The Wonders o Genetis Breed a New Art; Hed, Gene(sis);

and Anker and Nekin, The Molecular Gaze.37. Quotation exerpted rom promotiona pamphet or pubi programsreated to the Gene(sis) exhibit. The Henry Gaery is housed on the University oWashington campus.

38. Vanouse, A Rae about Rae.39. Yu Gong Yi Shan (Move the Mountain by Foo), a widey known

proverb tes the story o a Fooish Od Man who beieves it is possibe to digup two mountains that bok his view, over the ourse o time, as he is ertainthat his sons and grandsons into innity wi take on the task that he has begun.Mao Zedong appropriates the proverb as a metaphor or the power o the chinesepeope to move the twin mountains o imperiaism and eudaism. Notaby, whenhe produed Famiy Tree, Zhang had aready emigrated rom china. In this sense

the baked out se that we nd in these portraits aso neessariy speaks to ee-ings o utura exie. See coins, Zhang Huan. In an interview Zhang disussesthe neessity o using his body in reating his art. See Qian Zhijian, PerormingBodies: Zhang Huan, Ma 6081. Thanks to James Tweedie or pointing me towardsthe provenane o this proverb.

40. http://www.zhanghuan.om/ShowWorkcontent.asp?id=27&iParentID=18&mid=1 (aessed 28 Juy 2007).

41. An earier version o this disussion o lee and chamers previousy ap-peared in Weinbaum, Gene/aogies or a New Miennium.

42. like Vanouses RVID, lees Judgment and chamers Transgenic Micewere inuded in the Gene(sis) exhibit. This quote is rom the uratoria paqueused on that oasion.

43. lees images aso draw on iterary and visua depitions o himera, gratedvarieties ombining distint parts in a singe organism. Sine the nineteenth entury,himera have been used to onjure ears o siene run wid, as in H. G. Wes1896 nove, The Island o Dr. Moreau. Notaby, in the reent m, Wes monstrousreatures are visiby raiaized. On himeri and transgeni images in art see Anker


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and Nekin, The Molecular Gaze, 81112. On the intrinsi raiaization o the onepto hybridity and its onnetion to misegenation see Young, Colonial Desire.

44. Patt, Iigo Manglano-Ovalle.45. Poak, The Geneti Estheti; Dougherty, Iigo Mangano-Ovae; and

Patt, 18.46. Patt, Manglano-Ovalle, 22.47. When the two side panes are osed, a ourth image takes orm, that o

the Third Day o creation. Done in grisaie, this image depits the earth, shroudedin mist, burgeoning orth as the waters reede. For present purposes I restrit myseto the paintings three main panes.

48. Beage, The Garden o Earthly Delights, 39.49. Katzew, casta Painting; and Katzew, Casta Painting: Images o Race in

Eighteenth Century Mexico. Aso see, Kor de Ava, Mestizaje rom New Spain toAztan.

50. Here my argument ounters that proposed by Patt and Anker andNekinritis who interpret Garden as a eebration o post-raiaism, ratherthan as a ritique o its ase promises. See Patt, 18, and Anker and Nekin, The Molecular Gaze, 33.

51. See Room-or-pay, 7.

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