«oceanografias» or «a memória da água» is a poetic operation made in a computador from a linear numerical relation of correspondence with some signifiers, which are semantically and phonetically close to each other. [...] The project was developed in an 8-bit microprocessor Sinclair ZX Spectrum in January 1986.
Combinatory poem written and programmed by Antero de Alda and Jorge Santos in BASIC for a Spectrum ZX in Sever do Vouga, Portugal, on Jan. 1, 1986. The piece was later renamed as A Memória da Água.
Combinação de texto programada por Antero de Alda num microcomputador Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Sever do Vouga, 1/1/1986.
(Source: Po-ex.net)
ARTIST STATEMENT: Nuclear reactors are built to last for about 30 years. After that, the spent fuel needs to be stored for thousands of years. Zero-fault is unknown in all human endeavours. Culture fissions. Extinction Elegies is about the fragile instability of received meaning at both biological and social levels.
(Source: Artist's description on the project site)
TECHNE: The display of Extinction Elegies is non-linear and changes over repeated readings. For every time the entire poem is read (by the current reader), a mutant word(s) is introduced into every verse. In other words, after reading all the verses once, the next loop all the verses will contain one word replaced; after two reading loops, two words are replaced, etc... When the number of loops or mutation-rate exceeds the number of words in a verse, individual letters are replaced with words and all the verses disintegrate into untenable bloated nonsense.
INTERACTIVITY: Click on video, then use the LEFT or RIGHT arrow keys on yr keyboard to get new verses & the UP or DOWN arrow keys on yr keyboard to increase or decrease mutation. Alternatively, after the first time all the verses are read, the mutation rate auto-increases and buttons appear (at top and bottom of screen) which permit direct control of mutation rate.
For information on nuclear power, I am indebted to Rosalie Bertell and FaireWinds. Soundtrack (produced using Ableton's Tension) available for free download on Bandcamp. Most footage shot (March 2011) at La Societe des Plantes in Kamouraska using a Canon T2i with 50mm 1.8 lens (Author's note)
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)
