Stealing from God: The crisis of creation in Societas Raffaello Sanzio's 'Genesi' and Eduardo Kac's 'Genesis'

The recent performance work, Genesi: From the Museum of Sleep, directed by Romeo Castellucci for his company, Societas Raffaello Sanzio, explores the 'crisis of creation', brought on by the scientific revolutions of genetics and nuclear physics and the cultural atrocity of the Holocaust. Genesi is a nalysed against Eduardo Kac's art installation, Genesis, which combines adv anced media for telepresent interactivity and genetic engineering. Genesi a nd Genesis relate not only in the cultural concerns of science and technolo gy studies, but in their interdisciplinary strategies, which include combin ing aspects of theatre, visual art, sculpture, and technology. Castellucci and Kac engage the risks inherent in the destruction possible through creat ion (both aesthetic and scientific) and isolate manners in which contempora ry constructions of the human are challenged. The works signal an awareness of the constantly shifting boundaries and borders of aesthetic genres and the developing convergence of the disciplines of science and art.