Eduardo Kac and Avital Ronell’s Life Extreme-An Illustrated Guide to New Life raises a lot of interesting questions I hadn’t previously put much thought into. It delves into many different aspects of the existence of man-made creatures as well as what it means for us as humans to have the capability to genetically alter life around us. In a broad sense, it seems that Kac and Ronell are focusing on the nature of evolution, the relationship between poetry and science, and how humans and animals coexist. To tackle evolution and how humans tamper with it, the authors first ask “what is nature?” For instance, is it natural for two species of dolphins in captivity together, a bottle nose and a false killer whale, to mate and create a new species, the wolphin, when there are no known cases of the species’ reproducing together in the wild? Avital Ronell cites German scientist H-J Rheinberger in this case who says that, “Even in a laboratory, nothing is natural.” On the other hand, accompanying a picture of this wolphin’s face is a quote by Martin Buber that says, “An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language”. The effect that the pairing of this quote and picture have makes you believe that this animal, no matter how it came about, is a natural being. I would have to agree with what the picture and quote imply. Too often we separate ourselves from the rest of living matter on earth, and I personally believe that even if a new species is brought into being in a man-made habitat or even a Petri dish it is still a natural part of evolution. We too are animals, I’m not sure that we should egotistically exclude ourselves from the rest of the world and say that our actions aren’t “natural” due to the role that some of our creations play in them, namely technology. Rather than setting our synthetic tools and environments apart, I think we should acknowledge them as new additions to nature, part of the earth and its inhabitants’ constant metamorphoses, and take responsibility for their repercussions because they are extensions of us as natural beings and our needs as we have evolved. As far as this responsibility goes, Avital Ronell says, “I…wonder if we have gone too far in our time. One should try to pin-point what the excess of technological accomplishment implies.” This has to do with both the tangible effect that technology has on the evolution of other species and an intangible disbanding of the relationship that the authors claim poetry and science have always had. That last quote from Ronell follows a picture of a genetically engineered blue rose. The blue rose has always symbolized the unattainable in poetry, something beautiful that can only be imagined, but physical specimens were brought into the world by companies Suntory and Florigene in 2004. Are we eliminating the Other and the mystery of poetry through “the excess of technological accomplishment” now? Flipping through the pictures in Life Extreme make you realize how much power we have because of science, in a way “…[imposing] a new idea of god” as Antonin Artoud said. Avital Ronell compares the current relationship of poetry and science to the tale of Dr. Frankenstein who “At the beginning of the story…is seen with his ‘more than sister’ Elizabeth, who incarnates Poetry, and they are inseperable.” He then becomes obsessed and creates the monster and is “scientifically driven”. “That is where Mary Shelley situates the catastrophe one is talking about” Ronell says, “a science that would have radically forgotten poetry: science will have obliterated its origins…that is what Mary Shelley cried over, the rupture between science –which has become intricated in technology-and art that she builds on sexual difference.” Is science becoming less and less motivated by the beauty that we see in the rest of nature and the desire to understand it? Are we becoming more and more self involved in what we close off as our own world, separated by our technology and preoccupied in sciences use for its advancement?