By Phillip Thurtle. University of Minnesota Press, Posthurnanities

BIOLOGY IN THE GRID: Uncovering these differencesis GRAPHIC DESIGN AND THE politically important but also re ENVISIONING OF LIFE quires understanding how grids by Phillip Thurtle. University of are ordered. Thisinvolves asking Minnesota Press, Posthurnanities questions such as "What are the Volume 46, Minneapolis, MN, 2018. specific values that grids are in 272 pp, illus. Trade, paper. tended to support?" Understand ISBN: ISBN: 978-1517902773; 1517902770. ing life in the grid also demands Reviewed by Amy Ione, TheDiatrope the use of imagination. In this Institute, Berkeley, CA. Email: ione@ way we see how grids can be used diatrope.com. to reorder lives to be less oppres sive and more creative. Strangely, I https:/ doi.org/io.1162/leon_r_01898 it is through a study of the most As I began Phillip Thurtle'swell monotone and bureaucratic of researched Biology in the Grid: terms, "regulation;' that we see Graphic Design and the Envisioning of how closely bound the impulse to Life, I wondered how his "envision - control and the desire to imagine ing of life" would intersect with the coexist through envisioning. (p. 6) abundant evidence that a complex array of grids have served as a foun Thurtle, a biologist who specializes dational element in art, architecture in the cultural and conceptual basis and design production throughout of biology, uses a bifurcated research history. A few examples that quickly strategy to bring together the value of come to mind include those used standardization and the value of envi to construct perfectly proportioned sioning what lies beyond the kind of Egyptian and Aztec temples, Islamic accepted tropes that standardization and Buddhist art, Chuck Close's reinforces. Thegist of the argument stylized portraits and the layout of is that while twentieth-century bio medieval illuminated manuscripts. logical research focused on narrowly Rosalind Krauss's 1978 statement that definedelements (parts or modular the surfacing of the grid in early ity), the trend now is systemic. He twentieth-century modernist art was claims that the entry of the computer an announcement of "modern art's into biological research is conceptu will to silence, its hostility to litera ally too limited to explain how the ture, to narrative, to discourse" [1] is fieldhas shiftedto a systemic vision. also a part of the grid litany, although In his view, while the computer aids one that gives a negative cast to how standardization, standardization on we use grids to engage with objects in its own terms does not address how our world. difficultit is to turn the complexity of As it turns out, Biology in the Grid life into the data and operable com - moves along a markedly different mands that a computer will recog track. Despite the integration of nize. Envisioning, by contrast, offers graphic design, the entertainment an element that captures a composite industry, advertising and cultural act. Thevalue of envisioning is that it theory, the book is largely orthogonal mixes imagination, visualization and to the long art and design trajectory. desire. "To envision something in the Thurtlesees grids as a framework biological sciences means having a within a biopolitical circumstance vision for how something could occur and makes the point that "living in under specificcircumstances" (italics the grid" does not equalize us because his, p. 3). all lives are not treated similarly Thurtle's carefully craftedexplana despite the seeming uniformity of the tions of the difference between holism form. In his words: and evolutionary development are the most insightful aspect of his layered I will argue ... despite the homog discussion. Traditionally holism enizing appearance of grids, not all has spoken in terms of the relation - lives in a grid are treated similarly. ship of parts to an integrated whole. Leonardo Reviews 343 Evolutionary development model such as how grids with size and scale tion for a different type of order, ing, by contrast, is not predicated distinctions are essentially decisions one that uses grids in new ways on a final, complete result. Rather, that influence how we see what is to findnew potentials. Under as he elegantly shows, an articulate presented to us. Vilem Flusser's work standing life as a form of political evolutionary model can address how on how images engage viewers is used pestilence is politically important it is that one part and another part to support Thurtle's two-part imagis for understanding the potentials create a third element. Less effective tic arguments. The first part ( or phe behind the constrained options are his effortsin bringing biology nomenological element) rests on the open to all forms of lives trapped and the grid to what he says liter- claim that the power of images defies in the grid. (p. 95) ary theorists call world-building. As the linear logic of typical arguments. he explains the analogy, twentieth The political-economic complement The author's concern in Chapter 4 century consumption practices and to this is that technical images har is what happens when the power of values were informed by the grid; ness the power of vision as a form of association and regulation found in looking through this lens we can see regulation that constructs experiences the visual design of grids is thought how the entry of computation ( or the from the fragments of industrial and to drive the development of the data enriched information of techni postindustrial processes. organism. He navigates this tricky cal images) and world-building offer Subsequent chapters grapple territory primarily through the work conjoined visions "for a world that with how regulation, standardiza and ideas of two thinkers instru can be envisioned (imagined and tion and organic development relate mental in the late nineteenth and controlled) in all its complex interac to one another. Thurtle's approach throughout the twentieth centuries, tions" (p. 3). is very broadly based, looking at William Bateson (1861-1926) and Chapter 1 introduces the aesthetic norms and at what deviates from Edward B. Lewis (1918-2004). Their of Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919 ), a Ger our expectations. Chapter 3 probes research allows Thurtle to demon - man zoologist and artist who worked the tension between regulation and strate how illustrations, which were prodigiously in both the nineteenth development through asking how used to articulate a modular theory and twentieth centuries, as a means pests-organisms that can evade a of life and modularity in general, to think about how forms are used grid-are a part of how we see life. evolved. Both Bateson and Lewis to represent living things. Haeckel's TheFly, a potent 1958 Kurt Neumann identifiedas geneticists, and both representations make many points science fiction film based on a failed were interested in how heredity could sequentially, and his exquisite images teleportation experiment, drives produce a variety of bodily forms. offer some formal entry into this art this discussion. A fly unexpectedly Thurtle tells us that twentieth-century ist/scientist's theories of life. Curved enters the machine with a man and modularity was driven by an interest and wavy lines suggest vitality and brings about an unforeseen catastro in how small shifts in processes could closed circular lines aid in build- phe, with a man-sized man/fly and lead to changes in organisms. These ing up architectural volumes for a fly-sized fly/man serving as evi figuresintroduce avenues for think his forms. The sum total offers an dence that something went radically ing about how variety could suggest accounting for both structure and wrong. Grids, introduced through order. Bateson's theory of variation, change in living forms. Biopolitical artifacts, are used to explain that our Thurtle tells us, is not a coherent framing is addressed through com - world is composed of many types theory of modularity, although it pelling critiques noting Haeckel's use of competing orders and regulating is predicated upon the process of of the grid-like sequences to "vali norms. One is TheFly's poster, which segmentation. The ways in which date" his racial theories. featured a window screen (grid) in William Bateson's work influenced In Chapter 2 we meet the grid as front of a woman's face. Obviously, his son Gregory Bateson's theories on a tool for consumer experiences. a window screen keeps flies from information and cybernetics adds a Introducing graphic design as a entering our living spaces. A con living and intergenerational example twentieth-century innovation, despite trasting image is a shot of a torn win - to this chapter, aiding Thurtle in the form's long history as a design <lowscreen from the movie's opening elaborating how modularity morphed tool, Thurtle's emphasis is on grid credit. This still shot frames Thurtle's into a more systemic outlook. layout as a communication technique point that living elements interact Edward Lewis, who helped found used in design layouts, filmfram with a grid in more than one way. He the field of evolutionary develop ing/editing and comic books. How tells us that the biopolitical under mental biology, was a corecipient of they speak to spatial and temporal belly of the 1958 filmis its depiction the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or characterizations, while referencing of a deeply classed, gendered and Medicine for his work with Droso changes, is articulated using sche racialized dimension. phila (fruit flies). His work showed matic and realistic representations. how a series of simple steps could He does not perceive the grid as It is not that pests are disordered, make for complex and varied out neutral, as he explains with examples it's just that they embody a sugges- comes and laid the groundwork for 344 Leonardo Reviews alizing a biopolitical space or any of I highly recommend this well the biopolitical notations earlier in researched and carefully presented the book.

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