EUDAIMONIA

INSTALLATION OF A short film (11min) AND OBJECTS (3D PRINTED metal, handblown GLASS, plastic).

Eudaimonia (2018) is a philosophical-speculative future scenario where human psyche and character has become a matter of molecular biology and can be altered with personalized genome editing device. Today some bioscientists claim to have found that specific genes fundamentally affect human behaviour. Explicit features of character and psychological qualities, such as empathy and impulsive behaviour, are traced even to a single allele of a gene. These claims open up the question of whether the “optimization” of the human psyche would soon become an issue of genome editing and biomedicine. The work aims to raise critical questions about possible impacts of the novel genome editing technology CRISPR and genetic determinism. The concept was inspired by Aristotelian philosophy of happiness Eudaimonia, in which good life can be reached through lifelong process of self-development towards virtues. The work speculates on contemporary version of virtues: autonomy, creativity and efficiency and connects these in the questions of human biomedical enhancement. Can happiness be reached through a technological fix or does it require long term self-development? The art work is realized as a fictional genome editing device, a desirable consumer product and as a short film imagining the possible societal impacts of the technology: a story of three individuals seeking help from mysterious gene editing technology in their quest to find happiness in contemporary western capitalistic world. The work thematizes the dark side of biotechnologization of the human psyche and phantasmatic drive towards “better life”.