快猫短视频

Marina Warner is a novelist, art historian and scholar. She has held fellowships and visiting professorships at universities including Stanford and Yale. While at All Souls College, Oxford, she gave the Clarendon Lectures on the theme of metamorphosis. These lectures are now publishedas Fantastic Metamorphoses, Other Worlds: Ways of telling the self (OUP, 2002). Her other books include Alone of all her Sex, and fiction, of which Murderers I Have Known (Chatto & Windus) is the latest. The exhibition Metamorphing: Transformation in Science, Art and Mythology, sponsored by the Wellcome Trust, is at the Science Museum until 16 February.

What were you trying to do with the exhibition?

Metamorphosis is a very interesting organising idea. It reaches across cultures, across time, connecting science, art, literature, myth, magic and wonder. It has two major strands. In myth, literature and art, it is the cataclysmic, and in nature it is the biological description of how things actually grow 鈥� the key principle of natural growth. It is also at the heart of some of the latest science with the idea of combining different kinds of organisms. And it is intimately connected with personal identity. Right now we鈥檝e entered a period where self-metamorphosis has high priority, for example through cosmetic surgery. All of this raises huge ethical and intellectual questions. So it鈥檚 very rich indeed.

Where did all the exhibits come from?

Oh everywhere! Illustrations from Dante鈥檚 vision of Purgatory from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Six Heads of Goslings from the Hunterian in Glasgow, Prozac and from the Science Museum, The Garden of Earthly Delights and lots from Wellcome鈥檚 own collection. We were also lucky enough to attract artworks from major figures such as Paula Rego, who produced a work specially for the exhibition.

It looks huge. How is it organised?

In six sections. It runs from the stage-setter, 鈥淢etamorphosis: Supernatural Bodies鈥�, through 鈥淕eneration: Bodies in Time鈥�, 鈥淗ealing: Afflicted Bodies鈥�, 鈥淢odification: The Artificial Changeling鈥�, 鈥淢utation: Evolving Bodies鈥� to the end, 鈥淭ransformation: Altered States鈥�.

Were there any frustrations putting it all together?

You would expect a few with an exhibition of this size and type 鈥� and there were. Choosing the exhibits around genetic modification, for example, was very political. Rob Kesseler鈥檚 glass work, Bud, which contains genetically modified soya beans in a glass vial, offered one of the best ways of expressing the central ambiguity about genetic modification 鈥� there was no comment, just presentation of the seeds so the visitor could make up their own mind.

Financially there were other frustrations. I would have loved to have had Ovid鈥檚 illuminated manuscripts from the British Library but they were just too expensive.

How did you get involved?

Back in 1998 I saw Sarah Bakewell鈥檚 Transformations at the Wellcome Trust on bodily transmogrifications and was very impressed by her captions and the general thinking that had gone into it. I had been working on similar themes concerning monsters and metamorphosis. So the show has been forming in some way or other for four years.

Was the Science Museum your first choice?

It鈥檚 a brand new space within the museum. It鈥檚 not Tate Modern but it is somewhere people go to at weekends, and that has real value. Our relationship with the Science Museum was not altogether smooth, but Ken Arnold, the director of exhibitions at Wellcome, was our emissary and he鈥檚 very diplomatic.

Are you pleased with the way it turned out?

Of course there are always things you would change, but I think it was an attempt at something really quite different and it came off well enough to make some good points.

Was there something about science that gave you new artistic licence?

More inspiration perhaps than licence. Science is now less distant from humanity. You see more scientific observation and metaphor in poetry and so on. It is becoming usual to be inspired by science. The boundaries are melting in biology and physics, with consciousness studies and similar areas of study crossing over territories that were previously more strictly delineated.

Which part of the exhibition do you like best?

I like the juxtapositions in the body-modification section, with shoes for bound feet from China next to Lord Denning鈥檚 wig 鈥� different kinds of symbols of bodily transformation, one expressing disempowerment and the other giving that person his authority.

What do scientists make of it all?

One mathematician friend, who was not very used to looking at contemporary art, found it very absorbing, but he thought that some of the science could have done with more explanation. He said the caption for the piece by Ernst Haeckel, the 19th-century anatomist and evolutionist, was not sufficient. He would have liked to have known more about what Haeckel actually did, because he鈥檚 not a biologist. And actually I鈥檓 a great admirer of Haeckel myself. I adore those beautiful prints so I, too, would like to have known more!

But Arnold鈥檚 directive from Wellcome is not to overload with too much explanation. Perhaps we should have done a proper publication.

Would some sort of public event work?

Actually I have managed to organise an all-day debate at the Victoria and Albert Museum on 12 February, under the title Metamorphing: Changing bodies, altered states, so people can come and talk about some of the issues.

Are you wary of the borrowings that science and art make of each other鈥檚 metaphors without really understanding them?

Oh definitely. I think we writers can plunder in a rather unconscious way, of course. But I don鈥檛 belittle the difficulty of the concepts. It鈥檚 all very well to think that you鈥檝e understood, but I know that the real experts think those popular books are sometimes quite misleading because they have to simplify. And if you haven鈥檛 got the background 鈥� and in some cases the mathematics 鈥� you really can鈥檛 understand it.

Nevertheless, I don鈥檛 think that鈥檚 a reason that we should shy away, and I鈥檓 very keen that in all disciplines people should let themselves be absorbed. One mathematician I met last year told me something very interesting. He said that there were three levels of understanding. At the first level, something is explained to you and you take it in, and as you鈥檙e taking it in, you understand it. At the second level, you can pass the knowledge on to someone else. Then at the third level, you can evaluate and modify it in order to use and apply it. He said a lot of people can understand mathematics at the first level, and there鈥檚 nothing wrong with that level because you are broadening your consciousness. But it means you can鈥檛 play with the subject. I鈥檓 at that level in science, but in literature and art I can work at the third level and play.

Where does that leave some of these novels and plays by scientists?

Rather pedagogic perhaps, because they can鈥檛 play. They can鈥檛 produce transformations into art. I think that some of the artists have responded more sensitively, more quickly to the issues raised by science than writers have, with a few notable exceptions. Also because making a piece of art is not a cognitive act 鈥� it鈥檚 not discursive, it鈥檚 not an argument, because it鈥檚 a representation in an imaginative dimension 鈥� it doesn鈥檛 have to be fully lucid. Returning to Kesseler鈥檚 piece with the modified soya beans in a glass jar, he doesn鈥檛 have to make up his mind what he thinks, he has compressed the 鈥渄anger鈥� or the 鈥渨hatever鈥� into an emblematic object and communicated it very clearly through that.

Is there something about science that doesn鈥檛 work when you try to deal with it in plays and novels?

This takes us onto an interesting aspect of this whole area, which is that science really has become the metaphysics of our time. It is the mystical place, the higher place. One of the reasons for Stephen Hawking鈥檚 success as a writer, even for the success of Richard Dawkins and of Michael Frayn鈥檚 play Copenhagen, lies in this desire of the public to be anointed by entry into the sacred citadel of scientific truth. And I have to say that I鈥檓 very, very susceptible to that myself. I admire these mathematicians and physicists inordinately, more than poets in some ways, because I know more about what poets do. But one of the things intellectually I was trying to do in the exhibition was provide a historical context for concepts of scientific discovery, because I wanted to show that there is fallibility, that this is not an anointed place any more than religion is. These are constructions of great beauty and complexity, but they are human.

Does this mean that you sympathise with the relativist interpretation of 鈥渇acts鈥�?

No. I鈥檓 not such a relativist. I know that there are certain facts. I鈥檓 very interested in the concept of truth, and just because I don鈥檛 think we鈥檝e achieved a representation of truth doesn鈥檛 mean it isn鈥檛 there to be represented. I heard Roger Penrose being interviewed on the radio and he said he was a Platonist. I鈥檝e always liked his work 鈥� in so far as I can understand it, which I don鈥檛 of course! But I like his humility, I prefer it to the other people who say the world is just a machine. I like his humility before the mystery, I like the fact he said he was a Platonist. I don鈥檛 believe there is a divine order that exists of which we are all just copies, but there is a seeking, a getting nearer some sort of truth.

How would you characterise the particular flavour that science has in this quest for truth?

Take spinning objects as an example. Spinning is fascinating, some of the most ancient toys discovered in tombs millennia old are spinning toys, it鈥檚 one of the oldest things that the human mind discovered. It鈥檚 still a magical thing to us, it鈥檚 a little image of the world.

When I watched the eclipse of the Moon two or three years ago, one of the most extraordinary effects of the eclipse was that you could see that the Moon was actually a rock hanging in the sky, because you didn鈥檛 see it as an illuminated surface any more. It was terrifying, this huge great bloody rock hanging in the sky 鈥� and spinning. It鈥檚 negative metamorphosis. I don鈥檛 know what the physical definition of spinning is, but I do have respect for it. So that鈥檚 the flavour of science that some things can be discovered, but it still doesn鈥檛 take away the wonder of them. And I like the stories of how all these things are discovered and the experiments that help to establish them.

Do you have any background in science? Were you ever attracted to it as a child?

I went to a boarding school convent in Berkshire. My father was a bookseller and my mother became a teacher of Italian 鈥� she is Italian. We 鈥渄id鈥� a bit of science and I took biology, mathematics and physics for O level. But compared with other subjects I wasn鈥檛 much good at them. The nuns were very willing and very brave 鈥� they went to the University of Reading to get degrees so they could teach us all the subjects. And we had labs. But it wasn鈥檛 that well taught. In those days science was coded differently, it was so 鈥渦nladylike鈥�. We were being groomed to be good citizens, as wives and mothers. I was the first person to go to university from my school 鈥� to Oxford to read French and Italian, which was a soft option for me.

What do you think of other science exhibitions?

One of the things that I most regret about my son growing up is that I have no excuse to go to some of the more fun ones. But I did go to Body Worlds, Gunther von Hagens鈥檚 exhibition of plasticised human bodies. It鈥檚 been hugely successful, very popular and a lot of people say that the medical side of it is very interesting and there were hundreds of doctors there when I went. People are apparently still learning things from it. A lot of people have said it鈥檚 very effective in terms of health promotion 鈥� the blackened lungs are very successful.

But I thought it was terribly tacky, it had a really sleazy feel to it. I know that some exhibitions can be a bit precious, but this was a real freak show, fairground stuff. And I was very worried by the ethics of it. How did he get embryos at every stage of gestation? And the body of a pregnant woman who died at a very late stage of pregnancy? It made me think about the unholy link between commerce, profit and exploitation that can be raised by issues such as cloning, transplantation and organ trafficking.