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ENGINEERING NATURE: art and consciousness in the post-biological era
Edited by Roy Ascott

Bristol:Intellect. (2006) ISBN 1-84150-128-X

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i. Preface
These papers have been selected in part from the proceedings of the Fifth International Research Conference of Consciousness Reframed: art and consciousness in the post-biological era that took place July 31st - August 3rd, 2003 at the Caerleon campus of the University of Wales, Newport. Since the first conference, which I convened there in 1996, a consistent level of excellence, originality and insight has been maintained in the papers presented - a clear indication, I believe, that the issue of consciousness in the arts, and the significance of science and technology in this context, are of dynamic relevance to contemporary culture. Other papers, which add significantly to this issue, have been selected from Technoetic Arts, the international journal of speculative research, published by Intellect Ltd., of which I am founding editor.

The issues signalled in these articles, together with the proceedings of previous Consciousness Reframed conferences, and the texts of the journal, provide a rich exploration of the technoetic principle in art (that which prioritises the technologies of consciousness), and, taken as a whole, constitute a valuable archive of the ideas that are informing emergent fields of transdisciplinary theory and practice. Many perspectives can be brought to bear on art in the post-biological era, and whether they are scientific, poetic, spiritual, ethical, or social, they each occupy a place at the cutting edge of our 21st century’s artistic adventure.

Matters of mind, and the navigation, and perhaps eventually the explanation of consciousness are of cardinal significance to both art and science, just as they have always been at the very centre of the search for knowledge and our exploration of the numinous in previous, even archaic cultures. This book embodies the writings of artists and scholars from twelve countries in four continents, and so may be considered as a valuable reflection of international thought, practice and meditation on the place of technology and consciousness research in the current techno-culture.