genetics

Taking the concept of identity theft to its logical conclusion, DNA is an interactive, Web-based novel set in the year 2075, in a future where genetic clones are commonplace and the unique identity of any individual is protected only by tacit consent. Detailing a year in the life of a clone who begins plotting to take on the identity of one of his "code partners," the novel includes a series of hyperlinks to real and fictional Wikipedia entries that provide a peek into the dystopic future of economic, agricultural, cultural, social, and political systems. Influenced by a range of electronic and experimental literary works published over the last fifteen years, DNA presents a non-linear narrative that allows each reader to select his or her own narrative path though the novel and to explore the text's connection to other fictional and non-fictional texts published on the Web. The networked architecture of the project enables the reader to not only construct and engage with the narrative world of the novel itself but with other narrative worlds that exist outside of the novel. Overlapping, relating to, and informing one another, the various narrative worlds created inside and outside of the novel draw attention to the dynamic and generative nature of digital narratives, as well as to their ability to challenge traditional notions and definitions of authorial intention, the role of the reader, and narrative point of view. Additional interactive features enabling readers to contribute their own texts and links to the novel are currently being developed. Conceived as a novel that will appeal to readers of literary and dystopic fiction, as well as to a new generation of readers who access texts exclusively via the World Wide Web, DNA is informed by various electronic literature projects, as well as by several important dystopic novels, including Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, George Orwell’s 1984, Yevgeny Zemyatin’s We, and William Gibson’s Neuromancer. Fiction writers have been experimenting with digital hypertext and multimedia projects since the late-1980s, and several important works were published in the 1990s, including afternoon, a story (1990) by Michael Joyce, Victory Garden (1991) by Stuart Moulthrop, Patchwork Girl (1995) by Shelley Jackson, and 253 or tube theater by Geoff Ryman (1996). More recent hypertext and multimedia projects have been collected in the Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 1 (2006) and Volume 2 (2011). Combining my interests in creative writing, narrative studies and the history of the novel, the sociology of literacy, and digital Humanities, DNA is both a digital novel and part of an ongoing narrative-studies project that considers what effects digital authoring tools and reading platforms are having on fiction in general, and the novel in particular. Based on my own experience composing a Web-based novel, as well as on the analysis of other digital literary projects published in the last two years, and a review of digital literary projects published over the last fifteen years, I am studying how various elements of the novel as genre are being translated and/or re-conceived given the new possibilities and constraints created by multimedia tools for writing and reading. (Source: Author's Project Overview)

A mythic parody that challenges current genetic engineering techniques. After being considered a source of female evil for thousands of years, Lilith and Eve reinvent themselves by creating an ethical gene according to ancient Hebraic Kabbalah ritual. With this new gene they mold a golem, an artificial anthropoid. The kabbalah gene displaces the artist's gene that Eduardo Kac invented in his artwork, "Genesis."

(Source: 2002 State of the Arts gallery)

While most social dynamics focus on the exterior of the human condition, the outward body and its many appearances, it is the interior, the cellular level of humanness that has the greatest influence on who we become. And yet, those microscopic worlds inside our bodies, the genetic codes that drive our growth and eventual dissolution have eluded any attempt at full comprehension. Yet these discoveries are, sadly, subject to power relations that claim ownership over gene sequences and sell back to us cynical futurities of an ideal human form through genetic manipulation. This new science, what some are calling 'the hinge' in contemporary human development, drives and bursts the net-based new media creation "The Bomar Gene".

The premise of "The Bomar Gene" is that within every human there is a singular gene, unique only to that individual. And with that gene comes a singular ability, a rare, mostly never realized capacity for interacting with the world. "The Bomar Gene" explores this mythical gene, through a series of ficto-biographies, with each story being re-translated and spatialized through interactive interfaces and embodied animations. Each section opens up such questions as: How are we defined by our genetic code? What does it mean to be an individual, to be unique? What are the implications of a society obsessed with rare abilities and super-powers? Each interface/section not only explores the realms of culture and individuality and genetics, but also attempts to innovate new methods of net based aesthetics and arouse alternatives for user interaction with artistic content.

The layering of ideas, of various notions of how our internal forms recreate our external reach, is explored through the multiple paths, the weaving of sound, scrolling text and dynamically explorative images. And then within the layers and stories are nine interfaces, the hands of this net-artwork, they not only serve to display information, but to alter the way the user connects with the content, to become digital fingers for fictional genes.

(Source: Author description from his site)

Golem was a two channel video installation where the two monitors were arranged like the pages of an open book. The imagery was derived from medieval illuminated books so the overall effect was of an electronically illuminated manuscript. The work took as its theme the ancient Jewish myth of the Golem, a human-like creature created to do the bidding of its creator, the genesis of the Frankenstein story. The work deals with the issues around contemporary technologies such as genetics and Artificial Intelligence.

(Source: Project description on Biggs's site)