생명의 담론 - 리차드 파워스의 『골드 버그 변주곡』

Abstract

This essay concerns how Richard Powers' Gold Bug Variations (1991) recreates the discourse of the "book of life," and connects this to other fragmentary objects to create new forms of "assemblage." While others have examined the novel's relationship to aesthetics, I focus on the author's use of the "information novel" to explain the development of genomic research as an interdisciplinary phenomenon. I show how "assemblage" is useful in this context as it emphasizes how scientific theories and their modes of articulation have evolved so that one scientist's theory or hypothesis will be solved and decoded by the next generation. This causes a consistent movement of the center of scientific focus as each new discovery is made. Powers wants to explore the genome and history of the genomic study in the archaeological standpoint of knowledge, and more importantly, the current historical moment, in which the infinity of the genome is articulated through the cybernetic metaphor. By weaving things such as multiple discourses with Bach's Goldberg Variations, Herri's art, biology, and computer science, he shows the development of biology from modern to postmodern through cybernetic metaphors and advanced technologies. In this context, my paper examines the field of scientific referents represented in the discursive world of The Gold Bug Variations to analogize Powers' thought processes, and the change of a paradigm in biology with the emergence of a network of exchanges in signifying fields. I then look closely at the ways by which the discourse of cybernetics has transformed molecular biology as scientists have wrestled with the infinity of the genome. The essay represents my desire to draw together the fields of cultural studies and science through a meaningful exchange of ideas.