MOLECULA MENSSAGEM: A CONVERSATION WITH EDUARDO KAC (PRONOUNCED "KATZ")
CORE·MMUNICATION
COMMUNICATION IS THE CORE OF EVERYTHING THAT ENTANGLES EDUARDO KAC'S REMARKABLE (SOON TO TURN) FOUR DECADES OF WORK, FROM MOVIMENTO DE ARTE PORNÔ's DEFIANT USE OF COLLECTIVE PORNO-DADA AGAINST BRAZIL's OPPRESSIVE DICTATORSHIP IN THE EARLY 80's, TO THE ZERO GRAVITY CNES/ISS CONCEIVED INNER SPACE IN 2017, KAC's STRATEGIES TO DELIVER RICH AESTHETIC VISIONS HAVE BEEN EFFECTIVE AT ESTABLISHING PROPER CONDITIONS TO CHALLENGE AND SUBVERT THE LIMITS OF HUMAN INTERVENTION AND INTERACTION, OFTEN TIED WITH AN OMNISENSORIAL APPROACH AND THE ALWAYS MORPHING CULTURAL ELASTICITY OF ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES.
TAKING A DEEP DIVE INTO THE METICULOUS ATTACHMENTS OF KAC'S VISUAL ARCHIVES, IDEAS AND CONVERSATIONS BECOMES THEN, A CRUCIAL MOVEMENT TO UNDERSTAND THE ELEMENTS THAT INTERCONNECT HIS CONTAGIOUS PRACTICE. THE EARLY HOLOPOEMS, XEROX TRACES, FANZINES AND 3D GRAFFITIS WERE A CLEAR PREFIGURATION OF THE POST-DIGITAL CONTEXTS AND TRANSGENIC RAMIFICATIONS THAT HIS PROJECTS WOULD EMBARK ON IN A PRE-DATA FUTURE TO COME; BUT ABOVE ALL, IS IMPORTANT TO RECOGNIZE HOW HIS HIGHLY TRAINED POETIC ABILITIES ENGAGED PUBLIC CONVERSATIONS TOWARDS A NEW COMPENDIUM OF TEXTUAL ERUPTIONS, A COMPENDIUM THAT RADICALLY CHANGED OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE SO-CALLED NATURAL WORLD, AND ALSO UNVEILED COMPLEX INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN THE DIGITAL AND THE ORGANIC IN THE XXIST CENTURY: INTERSPECIES, BIOBOT, TELEBIOPRESENCE, SCRIPTOGENESIS, BIOTELEMATIC, MOLECULAR SEMANTICS, BIOTOPE, NET ECOLOGY, CHIMERIC GENE, XENOGRAPHICS, PLANTIMAL, TISSUE TEXT, MICROBOT, TRANSGENIC LIFE, ETC.
PERHAPS THE BEST WAY TO HAVE A VERTEBRATE PROJECTION OF KAC'S PIONEERING LEGACY INTO THE NEXT YEARS, IS TO LOOK AT HIS STATEMENTS AS A CONTINUUM FEEDBACK WORTH OF OUR ATTENTION, WITH THE PREMISE THAT EVERYTHING CHANGES AND TRANSFORMS:
THE SEEDS OF EDUNIA (A PLANTIMAL MADE WITH GENETIC ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGIES THAT EXPRESSES KAC'S DNA IN THE FORM OF RED VEINS) ARE STILL ALIVE AND STORED IN THE SEED-PACKS MADE FOR THEM TO BE DISTRIBUTED AND PLANTED; TIME-CAPSULE, (A MICROCHIP INSERTED INSIDE KAC'S BODY) ENVISIONED THE UNEXPLORED POSSIBILITIES OF BIOTECHNOLOGY AND THE PERMANENT NEED OF STORING MEMORY EXPANSION; THE 20 POINTS ESTABLISHED IN BIOPOETRY, A TEXT THAT PROPOSED INNOVATIVE WAYS TO COMPOSE POETRY IN VIVO ARE YET TO BE EXPLORED BY FUTURE GENERATIONS OF EXO-READERS; GENESIS, THE ULTIMATE TRANSLATION ENTERPRISE IN TRANSGENIC ART (A CLEVER DIALOGUE AND EXCHANGE BETWEEN BIOLOGY, BELIEF SYSTEMS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, DIALOGICAL INTERACTION, ETHICS, AND THE INTERNET) PAVED DEBATES ON THE HUMAN CENTERED PERSPECTIVES OVER NATURE; SPACE POETRY DISCOVERED A NEW SPACE CULTURE AND THE POTENTIALITIES OF CREATIVITY IN NEW WEIGHTLESS ENVIRONMENTS; AND, WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF GFP-K9 (A PRE-ALBA PROJECT THAT INVOLVED THE CREATION OF A GENETICALLY ENGINEERED DOG CALLED "G", THAT KAC COULDN'T MAKE AT THE TIME DUE TO CONSTRAINTS INVOLVING THE WHOLE MAPPING OF THE DOG GENOME, UNAVAILABLE AT THE TIME), REVAMPED AS A NEW PROVOCATION FOR THE END OF THIS DECADE?
FOR THIS CONVERSATION ORIGINALLY RECORDED IN 2015, KAC TALKS ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ART AND NEW TECHNOLOGY (A QUESTION HE ASKED NAM JUNE PAIK IN 1988), NATURE AS THE LAWS OF PHYSICS, COMMUNICATION AS A FUNDAMENTAL PROCESS OF LIFE, BIOPOETRY AND THE LIVING AS A MEDIUM OF WRITING, THE TRANSITION FROM PREOCCUPATION TO OPEN INCORPORATION OF GFP BUNNY [AKA ALBA, THE GREEN FLUORESCENT BUNNY] IN POPULAR CULTURE AND THE EVOLUTION OF BIOART SINCE EDUARDO COINED THE TERM IN 1997.
CORE·MMUNICATION
COMMUNICATION IS THE CORE OF EVERYTHING THAT ENTANGLES EDUARDO KAC'S REMARKABLE (SOON TO TURN) FOUR DECADES OF WORK, FROM MOVIMENTO DE ARTE PORNÔ's DEFIANT USE OF COLLECTIVE PORNO-DADA AGAINST BRAZIL's OPPRESSIVE DICTATORSHIP IN THE EARLY 80's, TO THE ZERO GRAVITY CNES/ISS CONCEIVED INNER SPACE IN 2017, KAC's STRATEGIES TO DELIVER RICH AESTHETIC VISIONS HAVE BEEN EFFECTIVE AT ESTABLISHING PROPER CONDITIONS TO CHALLENGE AND SUBVERT THE LIMITS OF HUMAN INTERVENTION AND INTERACTION, OFTEN TIED WITH AN OMNISENSORIAL APPROACH AND THE ALWAYS MORPHING CULTURAL ELASTICITY OF ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES.
TAKING A DEEP DIVE INTO THE METICULOUS ATTACHMENTS OF KAC'S VISUAL ARCHIVES, IDEAS AND CONVERSATIONS BECOMES THEN, A CRUCIAL MOVEMENT TO UNDERSTAND THE ELEMENTS THAT INTERCONNECT HIS CONTAGIOUS PRACTICE. THE EARLY HOLOPOEMS, XEROX TRACES, FANZINES AND 3D GRAFFITIS WERE A CLEAR PREFIGURATION OF THE POST-DIGITAL CONTEXTS AND TRANSGENIC RAMIFICATIONS THAT HIS PROJECTS WOULD EMBARK ON IN A PRE-DATA FUTURE TO COME; BUT ABOVE ALL, IS IMPORTANT TO RECOGNIZE HOW HIS HIGHLY TRAINED POETIC ABILITIES ENGAGED PUBLIC CONVERSATIONS TOWARDS A NEW COMPENDIUM OF TEXTUAL ERUPTIONS, A COMPENDIUM THAT RADICALLY CHANGED OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE SO-CALLED NATURAL WORLD, AND ALSO UNVEILED COMPLEX INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN THE DIGITAL AND THE ORGANIC IN THE XXIST CENTURY: INTERSPECIES, BIOBOT, TELEBIOPRESENCE, SCRIPTOGENESIS, BIOTELEMATIC, MOLECULAR SEMANTICS, BIOTOPE, NET ECOLOGY, CHIMERIC GENE, XENOGRAPHICS, PLANTIMAL, TISSUE TEXT, MICROBOT, TRANSGENIC LIFE, ETC.
PERHAPS THE BEST WAY TO HAVE A VERTEBRATE PROJECTION OF KAC'S PIONEERING LEGACY INTO THE NEXT YEARS, IS TO LOOK AT HIS STATEMENTS AS A CONTINUUM FEEDBACK WORTH OF OUR ATTENTION, WITH THE PREMISE THAT EVERYTHING CHANGES AND TRANSFORMS:
THE SEEDS OF EDUNIA (A PLANTIMAL MADE WITH GENETIC ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGIES THAT EXPRESSES KAC'S DNA IN THE FORM OF RED VEINS) ARE STILL ALIVE AND STORED IN THE SEED-PACKS MADE FOR THEM TO BE DISTRIBUTED AND PLANTED; TIME-CAPSULE, (A MICROCHIP INSERTED INSIDE KAC'S BODY) ENVISIONED THE UNEXPLORED POSSIBILITIES OF BIOTECHNOLOGY AND THE PERMANENT NEED OF STORING MEMORY EXPANSION; THE 20 POINTS ESTABLISHED IN BIOPOETRY, A TEXT THAT PROPOSED INNOVATIVE WAYS TO COMPOSE POETRY IN VIVO ARE YET TO BE EXPLORED BY FUTURE GENERATIONS OF EXO-READERS; GENESIS, THE ULTIMATE TRANSLATION ENTERPRISE IN TRANSGENIC ART (A CLEVER DIALOGUE AND EXCHANGE BETWEEN BIOLOGY, BELIEF SYSTEMS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, DIALOGICAL INTERACTION, ETHICS, AND THE INTERNET) PAVED DEBATES ON THE HUMAN CENTERED PERSPECTIVES OVER NATURE; SPACE POETRY DISCOVERED A NEW SPACE CULTURE AND THE POTENTIALITIES OF CREATIVITY IN NEW WEIGHTLESS ENVIRONMENTS; AND, WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF GFP-K9 (A PRE-ALBA PROJECT THAT INVOLVED THE CREATION OF A GENETICALLY ENGINEERED DOG CALLED "G", THAT KAC COULDN'T MAKE AT THE TIME DUE TO CONSTRAINTS INVOLVING THE WHOLE MAPPING OF THE DOG GENOME, UNAVAILABLE AT THE TIME), REVAMPED AS A NEW PROVOCATION FOR THE END OF THIS DECADE?
FOR THIS CONVERSATION ORIGINALLY RECORDED IN 2015, KAC TALKS ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ART AND NEW TECHNOLOGY (A QUESTION HE ASKED NAM JUNE PAIK IN 1988), NATURE AS THE LAWS OF PHYSICS, COMMUNICATION AS A FUNDAMENTAL PROCESS OF LIFE, BIOPOETRY AND THE LIVING AS A MEDIUM OF WRITING, THE TRANSITION FROM PREOCCUPATION TO OPEN INCORPORATION OF GFP BUNNY [AKA ALBA, THE GREEN FLUORESCENT BUNNY] IN POPULAR CULTURE AND THE EVOLUTION OF BIOART SINCE EDUARDO COINED THE TERM IN 1997.
Tecno | Grafía[s]: In 1988 you interviewed Nam June Paik [Satellite Art] via telephone, for that interview you made an introductory text to describe his work: “In his search for an art that expresses contemporary life in the age of media, he blurs the distinctions between telecommunications and the visual arts; ancient and electronic forms; folk art and high art; East and West; design and beaux arts; objective and subjective time.”
The first question you asked him was “The relationship between art and new technology is as old as art itself. How do you see this relationship?”
Now, I want to ask you the same question, 27 years later.
The first question you asked him was “The relationship between art and new technology is as old as art itself. How do you see this relationship?”
Now, I want to ask you the same question, 27 years later.
Eduardo Kac: The only thing that is constant is change, art changes, technology changes and opens up continuously new possibilities for artists and poets.
We forget that the pencil was a technology, we forget that oil painting was a technology, because it gets used so much, it gets incorporated into the larger vocabulary and we tend to no longer see it as a technology, we can’t fetishize technology, we can’t only consider technology as something that is new and that we don’t know anything about.
We forget that the pencil was a technology, we forget that oil painting was a technology, because it gets used so much, it gets incorporated into the larger vocabulary and we tend to no longer see it as a technology, we can’t fetishize technology, we can’t only consider technology as something that is new and that we don’t know anything about.
The Eight Day ☰ Eduardo Kac ☰ 2000/01
"The Eighth Day" is a transgenic artwork that investigates the new ecology of fluorescent creatures that is evolving worldwide. I developed this work between 2000 and 2001 at the Institute for Studies in the Arts, Arizona State University, Tempe. While fluorescent creatures are being developed in isolation in laboratories, seen collectively they form the nucleus of a new and emerging synthetic bioluminescent system. The piece brings together living transgenic life forms and a biological robot (biobot) in an environment housed under a clear 4 foot diameter Plexiglas dome, thus making visible what it would be like if these creatures would in fact coexist in the world at large.
"The Eighth Day" is a transgenic artwork that investigates the new ecology of fluorescent creatures that is evolving worldwide. I developed this work between 2000 and 2001 at the Institute for Studies in the Arts, Arizona State University, Tempe. While fluorescent creatures are being developed in isolation in laboratories, seen collectively they form the nucleus of a new and emerging synthetic bioluminescent system. The piece brings together living transgenic life forms and a biological robot (biobot) in an environment housed under a clear 4 foot diameter Plexiglas dome, thus making visible what it would be like if these creatures would in fact coexist in the world at large.
Technology is a whole gamut of material production, all art has engaged technology.
The real issue in my opinion is the resistance to change that many have, because technology has always been a part of our making, when somebody at some point in prehistory looked at the flower and had the idea of making pigment out of it, that was technology, the real issue is this increased resistance that one has to new possibilities.
I think the emphasis in regards to technology has to be in remaining open, in preserving this drive, this urge, this desire to explore, to navigate and to invent new realities, to me that’s what technology enables.
Tecno | Grafía[s]: I want to talk about the conceptions of -nature- in your work, your projects are constantly challenging this conceptions, such as the idea of a pristine-nature constructed by life sciences and it’s interventions.
How do you conceive the word -nature-, and what would be its interpretation and influences by techno science developments?
Eduardo Kac: To me, nature basically means the laws of physics, they regulate the material interaction of the world. In a sense everything falls under the laws of physics, which means that everything that falls in the laws of physics is natural.
Evolution did not make a green glowing rabbit, but the laws of physics allow a green glowing rabbit to exist, my work in that sense is not more or less natural than the particularly random direction that evolution took.
Evolution did not make a green glowing rabbit, but the laws of physics allow a green glowing rabbit to exist, my work in that sense is not more or less natural than the particularly random direction that evolution took.
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Natural History of Enigma ☰ Eduardo Kac ☰ 2003/08
"The central work in the "Natural History of the Enigma" series is a plantimal, a new life form Kac created and that he calls "Edunia", a genetically-engineered flower that is a hybrid of Kac and Petunia. The Edunia expresses Kac's DNA exclusively in the red veins of the flower. The gene Kac selected is responsible for the identification of foreign bodies. In this work, it is precisely that which identifies and rejects the Other that the artist integrates into the Other, thus creating a new kind of self that is partially flower and partially human. Developed between 2003 and 2008, and first exhibited from April 17 to June 21, 2009 at the Weisman Art Museum, in Minneapolis, "Natural History of the Enigma" also encompasses a large-scale public sculpture, a print suite, photographs, and other works." |
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Tecno | Grafía[s]: In several interviews you’ve said that communication is the core of everything, even in non-related areas of study in which communication is not formerly applied. Genesis is the perfect example of communication as core, but is also an example of the challenges of interpretation of information and the risks of translation.
What do you think about the human interventions of external information into -natural- information?
That is going to change the way we understand life?
Eduardo Kac: First of all, I think is important to clarify what I mean by communication.
Communication for me is not an act of transmission of information, is a situation in which an opening is produced that interaction is possible, that intersubjective exchange is possible, is this opening between two individuals or more, and the fact that this opening preserves a sense of responsibility that is not only mutually in the relationship, but also in the sense of response, in other words, is not an opening that flows in one direction only, and by not flowing in one direction only, it has a transformative power, which means that you may not be the same person after this communication experience.
Genesis ☰ Eduardo Kac ☰ 1998/99
"Genesis" is a transgenic artwork that explores the intricate relationship between biology, belief systems, information technology, dialogical interaction, ethics, and the Internet. The key element of the work is an"artist's gene", i.e., a synthetic gene that I invented and that does not exist in nature. This gene was created by translatinga sentence from the biblical book of Genesis into Morse Code, and converting the Morse Code into DNA base pairs according to a conversion principle specially developed for this work. The sentence reads: "Let man have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing thatmoves upon the earth." This sentence was chosen for its implications regarding the dubious notion of (divinely sanctioned) humanity's supremacy over nature. Morse Code was chosen because, as first employed in radiotelegraphy, it represents the dawn of the information age -- the genesis of global communications. |
This is what I’m interested, and I believe that this phenomenon is fundamental to life, in fact, is the coming together of disparate parts, is the material communication of things that were once separated that made life possible in the first place, that made the first organisms possible in the first place and it is the interaction among this organisms, for example the exchange of molecules, the exchange of DNA that has made all life possible.
I see communication not only as the use of words to tell somebody something, I see it as a fundamental process of all life. |
In light of this particular understanding of life I think that we have a serious misunderstanding about ideas of translation and communication, for example think of an olfactory experience, when the molecule enters your nosetril and attaches itself to the receptors in the back of your nose, that’s pretty much the end of the journey of that molecule, but upon contact with the receptors a reaction is triggered that produces an electrochemical reaction which in the brain produces a sensation, so you have the thing in the world, you have a molecule that attaches itself from it, you have the contact between two things (the molecule and your body), you have the translation or the chain reaction of that molecule into something else (this electrochemical reaction), and then you have a sensation.
What is this?
Is this translation?
What is this phenomenon?
This happens all the time, everything gets transformed into something else, my words right now are not entering anyone’s minds in the same manner that I order them, everything is continuously transformed. This is why I said in the beginning of our conversation that change is the only constant.
Time Capsule ☰ Eduardo Kac ☰ 1997
"Time Capsule" is a work-experience that lies somewhere between a local event-installation, a site-specific work in which the site itself is both my body and a remote database, and a simulcast on TV and the Web. The object that gives the piece its title is a microchip that contains a programmed identification number and that is integrated with a coil and a capacitor, all hermetically sealed in biocompatible glass. The temporal scale of the work is stretched between the ephemeral and the permanent; i.e., between the few minutes necessary for the completion of the basic procedure, the microchip implantation, and the permanent character of the implant. As with other underground time capsules, it is under the skin that this digital time capsule projects itself into the future.
"Time Capsule" is a work-experience that lies somewhere between a local event-installation, a site-specific work in which the site itself is both my body and a remote database, and a simulcast on TV and the Web. The object that gives the piece its title is a microchip that contains a programmed identification number and that is integrated with a coil and a capacitor, all hermetically sealed in biocompatible glass. The temporal scale of the work is stretched between the ephemeral and the permanent; i.e., between the few minutes necessary for the completion of the basic procedure, the microchip implantation, and the permanent character of the implant. As with other underground time capsules, it is under the skin that this digital time capsule projects itself into the future.
Tecno | Grafía[s]: In the book Cybertext Yearbook you wrote a chapter called Biopoetry, in this essay you described the migration of poetry from “material” formats to poetry in vivo, specifically you propose the use of living organisms as a new realm of verbal creation.
What is the intention and consequences of the techno- dissemination of poetry in these new modalities?
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Não! ☰ Eduardo Kac ☰ 1982/84
Created in 1982 and presented on an electronic signboard in 1984 at the Centro Cultural Cândido Mendes, Rio de Janeiro (in Portuguese). "Não!" is organized in text blocks which circulate in virtual space at equal intervals, leaving the screen blank prior to the flow of the next text block. The visual rhythm thus created alternates between appearance and disappearance of the fragmented verbal material, asking the reader to link them semantically as the letters go by. The internal visual tempo of the poem is added to the subjective performance of the reader. The poem was realized on a LED display. |
Letter ☰ Eduardo Kac ☰ 1996
A navigational poem that presents the viewer with the image of a three-dimensional spiral jetting off the center of a two-dimensional spiral. Both spirals are made exclusively of text. The reader is able to grab and spin this cosmic verbal image in all directions. Thus, reading becomes a process of probing the virtual object from all possible angles. The reader is also able to fly through and around the object, thus expanding reading possibilities. In "Letter" a spiraling cone made of words can be interpreted as both converging to or diverging from the flat one. Together they may evoke the creation or destruction of a star. All texts are created as if they were fragments of letters written to the same person. However, in order to convey a particular emotional sphere, the author conflated the subject positions of grandmother, mother, and daughter into one addressee. It is not possible to distinguish to whom each fragment is addressed. The poem makes reference to moments of death and birth in the poet's family. Letter is presented here as video documentation of an interactive reading experience. |
Não! (1982/84)
Eduardo Kac
Created in 1982 and presented on an electronic signboard in 1984 at the Centro Cultural Cândido Mendes, Rio de Janeiro (in Portuguese). "Não!" is organized in text blocks which circulate in virtual space at equal intervals, leaving the screen blank prior to the flow of the next text block. The visual rhythm thus created alternates between appearance and disappearance of the fragmented verbal material, asking the reader to link them semantically as the letters go by. The internal visual tempo of the poem is added to the subjective performance of the reader. The poem was realized on a LED display.
Eduardo Kac
Created in 1982 and presented on an electronic signboard in 1984 at the Centro Cultural Cândido Mendes, Rio de Janeiro (in Portuguese). "Não!" is organized in text blocks which circulate in virtual space at equal intervals, leaving the screen blank prior to the flow of the next text block. The visual rhythm thus created alternates between appearance and disappearance of the fragmented verbal material, asking the reader to link them semantically as the letters go by. The internal visual tempo of the poem is added to the subjective performance of the reader. The poem was realized on a LED display.
Eduardo Kac: In the context of Biopoetry in particular, what is at stake is the recognition that the living is now a medium for writing, that’s the fundamental recognition, not in a metaphoric way, not in an allegorical way, not in a representational manner, literally that is we can now create poems. We can now create works of literary value that are meant to be read by humans and sometime by nonhumans as well, and we can create these works of literature using living tissue, using DNA, using organisms of different kinds, we can use the processes of molecular biology as a writing medium.
☰ Biopoetry (Scanner) ☰
"Since the 1980s poetry has effectively moved away from the printed page. From the early days of the minitel to the personal computer as a writing and reading environment, we have witnessed the development of new poetic languages. Video, holography, programming and the Web have further expanded the possibilities and the reach of this new poetry. Now, in a world of clones, chimeras, and transgenic creatures, it is time to consider new directions for poetry in vivo. Below I propose the use of biotechnology and living organisms in poetry as a new realm of verbal, paraverbal, and non-verbal creation."
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visuals: Hoçâ Cové-Mbede
"Since the 1980s poetry has effectively moved away from the printed page. From the early days of the minitel to the personal computer as a writing and reading environment, we have witnessed the development of new poetic languages. Video, holography, programming and the Web have further expanded the possibilities and the reach of this new poetry. Now, in a world of clones, chimeras, and transgenic creatures, it is time to consider new directions for poetry in vivo. Below I propose the use of biotechnology and living organisms in poetry as a new realm of verbal, paraverbal, and non-verbal creation."
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visuals: Hoçâ Cové-Mbede
Tecno | Grafía[s]: I found two different moments in your career that are related and close to each other, the first is GFP Bunny and the second is Lagoglyph Animation which was hosted in 2015 by the Havana Biennial.
What kind of interpretations and impacts are the most impressive for you 15 years after the project GFP Bunny?
Is Laloglyph Animation a response to that era in which people were really worried about the Bunny?
Eduardo Kac: The laloglyphs aren’t a response to the early days meaning say between 2000 and 2010, for about ten years people remained very worried and then suddenly they weren’t anymore. During this period more or less about 2000 to 2009 I produced a series of works that engaged with the response that the work received, which was primarily based on this preoccupations and fears that people had, but suddenly this started to change. Then you see writers such as Michael Crichton who wrote Jurassic Park or Margaret Atwood who wrote Oryx and Crake incorporating the bunny in their novels, you see different types of response, for example the bunny was in Sherlock Holmes season 2, it was also in The Big Bang Theory season 6, this are responses that aren’t an expression so much of fear anymore, they’re expressions on the fact that the bunny has become an icon in its own right, and that is a different type of response, is a different moment in the development of the work and that is so, but the amount of writing in response continues to grow.
GFP Bunny ☰ Eduardo Kac ☰ 2000
"GFP Bunny" is a transgenic artwork that comprises the creation of a green fluorescent rabbit ("Alba"), the public dialogue generated by the project, and the social integration of the rabbit. While every past civilization has conceived and celebrated numerous imaginary creatures, never before Alba has an artist imagined a living mammal and then proceeded to make it a reality. Employing molecular biology, Kac combined jellyfish and rabbit DNA to produce a bunny that glows green under blue light. Kac’s art is based on the literal creation of new biological life. Kac explains that transgenic art must be created "with great care and with a commitment to respect, nurture, and love the life thus created." The global resonance of "GFP Bunny" has led Kac to develop a series of works in a variety of media, including drawing, photography, print, painting, sculpture, animation, and digital media.
"GFP Bunny" is a transgenic artwork that comprises the creation of a green fluorescent rabbit ("Alba"), the public dialogue generated by the project, and the social integration of the rabbit. While every past civilization has conceived and celebrated numerous imaginary creatures, never before Alba has an artist imagined a living mammal and then proceeded to make it a reality. Employing molecular biology, Kac combined jellyfish and rabbit DNA to produce a bunny that glows green under blue light. Kac’s art is based on the literal creation of new biological life. Kac explains that transgenic art must be created "with great care and with a commitment to respect, nurture, and love the life thus created." The global resonance of "GFP Bunny" has led Kac to develop a series of works in a variety of media, including drawing, photography, print, painting, sculpture, animation, and digital media.
The laloglyphs are more a response to this new phase, the second phase in which the bunny is no longer an object of concern, but rather a conduit to different insights and is also a reaction to the fact that a huge amount of discourse has been produced, so I thought that it would be interesting for the bunny to respond, even though she’s no longer alive, even though this response is vicarious, but it would be interesting for the bunny to produce this visual language, that was rabbit-like, and the laloglyphs are a series of works that are based on that.
Tecno | Grafía[s]: Artists like Heather Dewey-Hagborg have showed in her projects different preoccupations not just criticizing techno science but also genetic surveillance.
In your perspective what has changed in the way in which artists understand and apply Bioart?
Eduardo Kac: Bioart has changed dramatically since 1997 when i coined the term, we are getting closer to the 20th anniversary of Bioart, and in the beginning we were about a handful of artists working on this area, now you have countless books, and symposia, and dissertations and exhibitions, it’s a developed field that continuously expands, which means that there is room for all kinds of approaches, and Heather who is a colleague of mine in Chicago has this political angle that she is interested in exploring, is a testament to the richness of Bioart that it can have a more poetic approach, or a more political approach, or a more performative approach, we have all this different voices that can be equally expressed in the movement.
CREDITS |
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EDUARDO KAC (BR):
EDUARDO KAC IS INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNIZED FOR HIS TELEPRESENCE AND BIO ART. A PIONEER OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS ART IN THE PRE-WEB '80S, EDUARDO KAC (PRONOUNCED "KATZ") EMERGED IN THE EARLY '90S WITH HIS RADICAL WORKS COMBINING TELEROBOTICS AND LIVING ORGANISMS. HIS VISIONARY INTEGRATION OF ROBOTICS, BIOLOGY AND NETWORKING EXPLORES THE FLUIDITY OF SUBJECT POSITIONS IN THE POST-DIGITAL WORLD. HIS WORK DEALS WITH ISSUES THAT RANGE FROM THE MYTHOPOETICS OF ONLINE EXPERIENCE (UIRAPURU) TO THE CULTURAL IMPACT OF BIOTECHNOLOGY (GENESIS); FROM THE CHANGING CONDITION OF MEMORY IN THE DIGITAL AGE (TIME CAPSULE) TO DISTRIBUTED COLLECTIVE AGENCY (TELEPORTING AN UNKNOWN STATE); FROM THE PROBLEMATIC NOTION OF THE "EXOTIC" (RARA AVIS) TO THE CREATION OF LIFE AND EVOLUTION (GFP BUNNY). AT THE DAWN OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY KAC OPENED A NEW DIRECTION FOR CONTEMPORARY ART WITH HIS "TRANSGENIC ART"--FIRST WITH A GROUNDBREAKING PIECE ENTITLED GENESIS (1999), WHICH INCLUDED AN "ARTIST'S GENE" HE INVENTED, AND THEN WITH "GFP BUNNY," HIS FLUORESCENT RABBIT CALLED ALBA (2000). KAC’S WORK HAS BEEN EXHIBITED INTERNATIONALLY AT VENUES SUCH AS EXIT ART AND RONALD FELDMAN FINE ARTS, NEW YORK; MAISON EUROPÉENNE DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE, PARIS; CASTELLO DI RIVOLI, TURIN, ITALY; MORI ART MUSEUM, TOKYO; REINA SOFIA MUSEUM, MADRID; ZENDAI MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, SHANGHAI; AND SEOUL MUSEUM OF ART, KOREA. KAC'S WORK HAS BEEN SHOWCASED IN BIENNIALS SUCH AS YOKOHAMA TRIENNIAL, JAPAN; BIENNIAL OF THE END OF THE WORLD, USHUAIA, ARGENTINA; GWANGJU BIENNALE, KOREA; BIENAL DE SAO PAULO, BRAZIL; INTERNATIONAL TRIENNIAL OF NEW MEDIA ART, NATIONAL ART MUSEUM OF CHINA, BEIJING; AND BIENAL DE HABANA, CUBA. HIS WORK IS IN THE PERMANENT COLLECTIONS OF THE TATE, LONDON; THE VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON; THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART IN NEW YORK; FRAC OCCITANIE—REGIONAL COLLECTIONS OF CONTEMPORARY ART, LES ABATTOIRS—MUSEUM OF MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART, TOULOUSE, FRANCE; THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART OF VALENCIA, SPAIN; THE ZKM MUSEUM, KARLSRUHE, GERMANY; ART CENTER NABI, SEOUL; AND THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART OF SÃO PAULO, AMONG OTHERS. KAC'S WORK HAS BEEN FEATURED BOTH IN CONTEMPORARY ART PUBLICATIONS (CONTEMPORARY, FLASH ART, ARTFORUM, ARTNEWS, KUNSTFORUM, TEMA CELESTE, ARTPRESS, NY ARTS MAGAZINE), CONTEMPORARY ART BOOKS (PHAIDON, THAMES AND HUDSON, OXFORD, MIT PRESS) AND IN THE MASS MEDIA (ABC, BBC, PBS, LE MONDE, BOSTON GLOBE, WASHINGTON POST, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, NEW YORK TIMES). KAC HAS RECEIVED MANY AWARDS, INCLUDING THE GOLDEN NICA AWARD, THE MOST PRESTIGIOUS AWARD IN THE FIELD OF MEDIA ARTS AND THE HIGHEST PRIZE AWARDED BY ARS ELECTRONICA. HE LECTURES AND PUBLISHES WORLDWIDE. HIS WORK IS DOCUMENTED AT <WWW.EKAC.ORG>. |
