Incubator

• In Event: Misunderstanding Media

Abstract

This presentation considers the incubator as a reproductive technology. I explore the theoretical ground to be gained from imagining this medical apparatus as a medium. I consider the incubator’s message as the transformation of viability, making life possible outside of the womb at increasingly early stages of fetal development. Tracing the genealogy of the incubator, we see its beginnings as a sideshow piece and its maturity into a key technology of biomedical reproduction. The incubator has both produced bare life into public spectacle, as well as it has (re)produced intimate desires and attachments. We see a complicated medium sitting in the tension between these cultural realities, opening the question: Can McLuhan do reproductive politics?

Author

• Sara Martel, York U