Biological Gaze Research Articles

Queer, plastic residues: biological mutability and queer resistance in Robin Campillo's 120 BPM (2017) and the work of Catherine Malabou

ABSTRACT This article analyses how Robin Campillo’s cinema explores queer identity and queer political resistance through its focus on the mutability and resilience of (micro)biological life, arguing that this focus echoes a turn to the biological in recent French philosophy and queer thought, in particular in the work of Catherine Malabou. Whilst 120 BPM closely follows the human narratives of the AIDS pandemic, the film also foregrounds biological processes at work in the bodies of those with the virus. In one sequence, we see the ACT UP activists dancing together in a nightclub; the camera gradually loses focus of the human forms and zooms in on a microbiological landscape of cells as they move, transform and interact. Placing the cells within the context of the nightclub, Campillo’s camera avoids a diagnostic or pathologizing gaze upon (micro)biological life, instead foregrounding its intrinsic plasticity and resistance. I read Campillo’s biological gaze in dialogue with Malabou’s philosophy of the plasticity of biological life. Malabou’s elaboration of the dual capacities of biological plasticity for mutability and resistance, I argue, is also at work within Campillo’s cinematographic exploration of queer political formation through corporeal, micro-biological plasticity.

Bioinspired Image Stabilization Control Using the Adaptive Gain Adjustment Scheme of Vestibulo-Ocular Reflex

In this paper, an image stabilization control inspired by biological gaze stabilization mechanism is addressed. An image taken from the camera mounted on a mobile robot undergoes undesirable fluctuation that leads to poor system performance in autonomous or manual operation. Therefore, image stabilization of such camera system is essential and has been received much attention in the machine vision literature. On the other hand, a human is capable of stabilizing visual input, and this biological image stabilization mechanism is generally known as vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) in physiology. A particular interest of this paper is to realize this VOR features to image stabilization control problem. The mathematical interpretation of VOR in terms of the stabilization control is derived and a VOR adaptation rule is newly proposed. In the proposed method, the reference to control system is adaptively modulated by an adaptive gain to minimize residual vibration of the camera as the VOR gain converges to optimal state. To verify the proposed method, the linear shaft actuator-based image stabilization device is briefly introduced first, and it is utilized for the simulation model and experiments. Simulink simulation and experiments were conducted to demonstrate the proposed method, and results showed the proposed scheme contributes to image stabilizing effect. The image stabilization performance were validated from the vibration measurements and interframe transformation fidelity of the image sequence. From simulation and experimental results, it will be shown that the proposed method has a high potential to be applied in image stabilization control under significant system variation and uncertainties.

Genomic stuff: Governing the (im)matter of life

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-ansi-language: IS;" lang="IS">Emphasizing the context of what has often been referred to as &ldquo;scarce natural resources&rdquo;, in particular forests, meadows, and fishing stocks, Elinor Ostrom&rsquo;s important work <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Governing the commons</em> (1990) presents an institutional framework for discussing the development and use of collective action with respect to environmental problems. </span><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">In this article we discuss extensions of Ostrom&rsquo;s approach to genes and genomes and explore its limits and usefulness. With the new genetics, we suggest, the biological gaze has not only been turned inward to the management and mining of the human body, also the very notion of the &ldquo;biological&rdquo; has been destabilized. This shift and destabilization, we argue, which is the result of human refashioning and appropriation of &ldquo;life itself&rdquo;, raises important questions about the relevance and applicability of Ostrom&rsquo;s institutional framework in the context of what we call &ldquo;genomic stuff&rdquo;, genomic material, data, and information. </span></span>

Genomic stuff: Governing the (im)matter of life

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-ansi-language: IS;" lang="IS">Emphasizing the context of what has often been referred to as &ldquo;scarce natural resources&rdquo;, in particular forests, meadows, and fishing stocks, Elinor Ostrom&rsquo;s important work <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Governing the commons</em> (1990) presents an institutional framework for discussing the development and use of collective action with respect to environmental problems. </span><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">In this article we discuss extensions of Ostrom&rsquo;s approach to genes and genomes and explore its limits and usefulness. With the new genetics, we suggest, the biological gaze has not only been turned inward to the management and mining of the human body, also the very notion of the &ldquo;biological&rdquo; has been destabilized. This shift and destabilization, we argue, which is the result of human refashioning and appropriation of &ldquo;life itself&rdquo;, raises important questions about the relevance and applicability of Ostrom&rsquo;s institutional framework in the context of what we call &ldquo;genomic stuff&rdquo;, genomic material, data, and information. </span></span>

Maya medicine in the biological gaze: bioprospecting research as herbal fetishism.

The relationship of human societies to territory and natural resources is being drastically altered by a series of global agreements concerning trade, intellectual property, and the conservation and use of genetic resources. Through a characteristic style of collective appropriation of their tropical ecosystems, Maya societies have created local institutions for governing access to their common resources. However, new mechanisms of global governance require access to Maya biodiversity for world commercial interests. The Chiapas Highland Maya already face this prospect in the International Cooperative Biodiversity Group drug discovery project, which proposes to use Maya medical knowledge to screen plants for potential pharmaceuticals. The ethnobiological focus of the project emphasizes the naturalistic aspects of Maya medicine, primarily the use of herbal remedies. This biological gaze decontextualizes the situated knowledge of Maya healers, ignoring the cultural context in which they create and apply that knowledge. The search for raw materials for the production of universal medical technology results in symbolic violence to the cultural logic of Maya peoples. Only the full recognition of Maya peoples' collective rights to territory and respect for their local common-resource institutions will provide ultimate protection for their cultural and natural patrimony.

From Disciplinary Gaze to Biological Gaze: Genetic Crime Thrillers and Biogovernance

Imagine an America where violent crime rates have quadrupled over the past century, inexorably rising to a level that would be incomprehensible to previous generations. Imagine that the nature of violent crime seems to have changed, tak­ing a turn toward casual sociopathy where the representative crime has become calculated serial murder rather than a one-off crime of passion. Imagine the resulting level of public fear, rampant to the point where civic-mindedness is replaced by a fortress mentality, walled communities, pervasive video surveil­lance, and electronic monitoring as the public sphere is virtually abandoned as too risky. In this imaginary America, the fearful public turns angrily upon its gov­ernments, demanding more decisive action and inquiring as to why traditional practices of crime control are not controlling crime.