bio-art

Recent Reads: Veniss Underground

Posted 2004-05-09 (日) 午後2:29 by terra

Veniss Underground

This book is worth every dollar and cent I paid for, despite my initial reservations about purchasing it: it seemed just too expensive for a 207-page paperback. I had intended to borrow it from the national library but it turned out that for some strange reason it was not available in the library’s catalogue even though the book had been on sale for more than a year.

Most of reviews I’ve read for this novel describe it as a Dantean-Ophean phatamasgoric fable set in a futuristic society where biological living artworks have pervaded into human society for both aesthetic and functional purposes. Having read this novel, I come to the realisation that there is probably no better way to describe it: it is the sum of what the reviewers have described and much more. Vandermeer’s writing style is impossible to describe, it can only be felt through reading and imagination.

Subjects: Books 書物

Mood: Raves and Rants

Tags: bio-art, Jeff VanderMeer, new media, Olaf Stapledon

"More Ethics, Less Aesthetics" of Bio-Art. Discuss with Examples.

Posted 2004-02-09 (月) 午後6:10 by terra

The following essay was written for a module in my university called ‘New Media Art’ for the Jan-May semester in which I scored an A+ ^_^ A word of caution: While I’ve tried to be as accurate as I can while stating facts, I cannot guarantee that I’m 100% correct. If you’re doing a module similar to this: do not copy, do not cheat.

Subjects: School 学校

Tags: bio-art, new media, Olaf Stapledon

Transmutations

Posted 2004-01-13 (火) 午後1:56 by terra

This is something fascinating that I came across while reading the December 2003 edition of Scientific American.

The cover of the magazine features 6 photographs of the facial profile of a female model. These photographs originated from the same photo source, digitally altered with only minor differences - for example, eye/hair colour, the colour of skin. If each photo were viewed separately, one might not realise that the photos are of the same person: the ‘minor differences’ influences the viewer’s decision to classify the model into different races. In one photo the model looks perfectly Japanese, in another she looks Russian.

Reading into the feature article, I discovered that the amalgam was generated with a computer tool called the Human Race Machine, that was designed by (bioart?) artist Nancy Burson. It’s quite amazing really. Apparently, all one needs to do is to sit in front of the machine and enter a few keys, while the program does the rest of the work.

The artist’s website can be found here. It’s a pity it doesn’t contain the Scientific American photographs since they are a lot more racially ambiguous than the photos in her website.