CorporealSemiotics:TheBodyoftheText/theTextoftheBody 355
its ultimate goal,^50 but certainly one where utopian energies are imbued
with social and cultural meaning: "body projects suggest how
individuals and groups negotiate the relationships between identity,
culture,andtheirownbodies"(Pitts34).
In tandem with genomics, a genome-related biotechnological-
industrial complex has evolved which stands ready to make new
biological futures come true, by redesigning the inherited biological
endowment of human beings with a view to achieving new levels of
technologicallyinducedperfection.Whatmattersforthegeneralculture
arethewaysinwhichgenomicresearchintrojectsintothelivingbodya
new,secondtemporalitywhichisquitedifferentfromtheusual,wonted
temporality of the human life course which extends from past via
present into a future with its insurmountable terminal point: death. This
secondtemporalityextendsfromthebodyasis,initspresentcondition,
imperfect or compromised as it may be, all the way to another,
envisagedbody,thebodytobe—abodythatis,asIsaidamomentago,
locked in prognosis. This latter body is (as yet) absent but shadows the
bodypresentasanintendedimprovementorananticipateddread.
The intense debates about the feasibility of genetic interventions
should not obscure a fact that is of particular importance for cultural
critique: genomics is a crucial test case, maybe a limiting one for the
prevailingparadigmofsocio-culturalconstructivism.True,agenetically
modifiedorganismisinaveryelementarysenseaconstructbutonethat
would be inconceivable without the newly discovered material basis on
the level of molecular life. At the same time, the product of this
intervention,thegeneticallyengineeredbodyasabenchmarkproductof
human construction, is nonetheless not immune from the contingencies
ofbiologicalliving;itcanalwaysdiefromacancerthatwasnot"inthe
book of genetics" or a contagious disease (whose genetic basis is as yet
unexplored).
(^50) On the libidinal investments and dynamics of body projects see Blum's
chapter "Addicted to Surgery" (262-90). Cf. also Bettina Wahrig's essay
"Bodies, Instruments, and the Art of Construction. Historical Remarks on the
Scientific Texture of Living Bodies."TheBodyasInterface.Dialoguesbetween
theDisciplines. Ed. Sabine Sielke und Elisabeth Schäfer-Wünsche. Heidelberg:
Winter,2007.31-49.Print.