Open AccessBecoming-Dinosaur: Towards a Morphology of Creative Involution
Author(s) -
Alice Iacobone
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
altre modernità
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.101
H-Index - 4
ISSN - 2035-7680
DOI - 10.54103/2035-7680/16807
Subject(s) - novelty , involution (esoterism) , perspective (graphical) , expression (computer science) , cognitive science , epistemology , evolutionary biology , biology , sociology , aesthetics , psychology , art , computer science , philosophy , visual arts , social psychology , consciousness , programming language
Palaeontologist Jack Horner, along with molecular biologists and other experts, has been working on building an animal that he calls “the Chickenosaurus.” Horner’s purpose is to reverse-evolve a bird into a non-avian theropod by intervening on the genome expression of a chick’s embryo in ways that stimulate the formation of ancestral characteristics (activation of atavism). After a discussion of the project in its scientific detail, I offer a theoretical perspective on the topic that relies on concepts developed by Gilles Deleuze. In particular, I argue that the Chickenosaurus can be regarded as an eligible example of Deleuzian “becoming” and that it deserves philosophical attention in that it displays the “creative involution” through which novelty is produced.