UHP399 Gardens & Machines

GFP Animals

In Kac’s introduction he exposes us to Bio Art. One of the first things he implies is that any field, no matter it being astronomy or genetics, is almost immediately grabbed by artists and studied to find a way of “making it art.” Truthfully I would not have thought that this would have happened for genetics, but I will touch more on that in the next paragraph. Beyond just the art of genetics, Kac brings many issues to mind, amonge these are the separation of humans and nonhumans, the difference (or similarities) between natural organisms and organisms that have been altered on a physical or genetic level, the nature of evolution, and so many others I would be rewriting the introduction if I mentioned them all. The first two topics above are very though provoking for me. The difference between humans and nonhumans is as plain as it is complex. As far as I know the process of using animal parts for human transplant is still relatively new, but Kac accurately describes my feeling about it. It makes me queasy and uncomfortable. Even with my, admittedly short, education in genetics, I have learned that humans really are not that special in the genetics department. We share 45% of our DNA with common yeast. The stuff in bread is nearly one-half genetically identical with human DNA, and that number only gets higher as the animals get more complex; culminating with chimps which share as much as 98% of DNA with humans. The though of receiving a transplant from an animal, even a chimp, send gross shivers down my spine, and Kac’s writing began to show me how silly that is.

Similar to this is the topic of natural verses physically and genetically altered. Again my own feeling promptly sprung into the equation when I was reading this. I have a clear bias toward things that are “natural.” This is slightly ironic considering that even I am not 100% natural anymore—or at least the metal in my teeth is not. Any change to our bodies fundamentally changes what is natural, and for the most part we are ok with that, but as Kac points out, there is still a lot of fear connected with genetics.

The second reading is basically a catalog of some of Kac’s work. The most interesting piece for me was Move 36. This piece transcribes a passage from the philosopher Descartes into the genetic code of a small plant. This plant is then placed on a platform that resembles a chess board, in the precise square where for the first time ever a machine made a move that was as calculated and subtle as any move any human player could make. I like this piece because it addresses two things that still make people nervous about emerging science: the ability of certain machines to mimic the human mind, and the ability of humans to fiddle around with the code to life. Another aspect of this piece that I like is the passage that was chosen to be transcribed. “I think therefore I am,” pretty much screams that if this machine had the capability to think like human for just a moment, that is it more than just a machine?

Three Questions:

1. What I just said: If a machine has the ability to think like a human, if only for a small period, than is it more than a machine?
2. Is the fear that people feel about the field of genetics just another fear focused on something we don’t yet fully understand, or is it well founded, because we are finally messing with the building blocks of life?
3. What is it about Bio art that can help people realize their place in evolutionary history? Can we ever accept that we are not something extraordinarily special?

In the introductory chapter of Signs of Life, author Eduardo Kac examines the themes that relate/separate biotechnology, art, and society. Throughout this discussion, he mentions several important points. First is the issue of social acceptance in biotechnology. The nature of this scientific field is obviously controversial in many aspects of morality and ideology. He seems to conclude that society controls the thought process of individuals and, as a result, what we consider acceptable, unacceptable, normal, or weird is somewhat arbitrary as opposed to fact based.

Next, Kac inspects the relationships between biotechnology/art and art/society by asking questions such as: “What differentiates the ugly/weird from the bold/beautiful?” He spends some time looking into the societal views on this subject and eventually relates it a step further to include art inspired from biotechnology. For example, can a genetically engineered human who is physically perfect a beautiful piece of art or a monster? Using these relationships as a basis, he finally gets into the core of his work: transgenic art.

Transgenic art is defined as art based on the genetic engineering of one or more biological specimens in order to form a new life. Kac states that transgenic art is the culmination of his artistic experience and chapter 10 highlights his work in this field. As a few other people have mentioned, a major part of bio art might be the “creation of experience” more than anything else. It is obvious that Kac has had significant experience and exposure to bio art with projects such as Genesis, GFP bunny, the Eight Day, and Move 36. The rest of the chapter is spent explaining these projects in depth.

An overwhelming majority of people who blogged before me found Genesis to be the most interesting of his mentioned projects. I found that the opposite was true. Just to set the table straight beforehand, I have nothing against the Bible, what it teaches, or any religion(s) it is associated with. The truth is that I simply found the Genesis “artwork” to be stupid, un-insightful, and a big waste of time. The author claims that the work’s ability to change a sentence is a symbolic gesture to how we seek and accept new meanings in life. This whole concept seems rather farfetched for a simple experiment involving an English sentence, a line of morse code, and a slight change in bacteria DNA. It’s obvious that if you encode something into DNA and force a biological change in the DNA, the resulting English sentence will also change. How does this imply we don’t accept meaning in its original form? How are we seeking for a new meaning?

The GFP bunny did, however, legitimately catch my interest. It immediately raised many thoughts such as “I wonder if it looks really cool.” “Is this a scientific experiment or art?” “Where will we draw the line between respectable art, monstrous creature, and use/abuse of technology for aesthetic purposes?” I’m sure that some if not all of these questions are the type of thinking that Kac wanted to draw out of his audience. It makes for a much better showpiece than the bacteria too!

Questions:

1. Should bio art be held to the same moral standards as other aspects of biotechnology?

2. What is the difference between bio “art” and using biology/technology to enhance something/someone aesthetically or physically?

3. What is so cool about Genesis???!!! (No really, I’m serious.)

In his book Signs of Life, Eduardo Kac discusses the connections between biotechnology and art.  The introduction begins with a discussion of the history of bioart, which began with depictions of “grotesque” deformed people and illustrations of imagined “monsters.”  Kac challenges us to wonder, what separates the “grotesque” from the “beautiful”, as both are separated from “average” by their uniqueness, and has our increase in genetic engineering simply led from imagining “monsters” to creating them?  Is a bunny that glows beautiful?  Is a genetically modified strain of corn that can keep thousands of people from starving a monster?  How about a human who has been genetically engineered to be “perfect,” as it could be considered both beautiful and a monster.

The social and societal points this brings up are obviously huge.  It’s impossible to bring up such topics as genetic engineering or stem cells without hearing strong opinions from both sides.  Bioart is a good way to bring this to the forefront and make people notice, and hopefully ask these questions of themselves and really think about the answers.

Kac’s brief discussion of Darwin was truly fascinating.  The link between capitalism and natural selection is one that had never occurred to me, but after having it pointed out, seems almost inherently obvious.  Which brings up several questions: would Darwin have thought of this if it wasn’t the predominant economic thought process?  Would anyone have accepted it?  Did natural selection lead to capitalism?

I feel more personally affected, however, by the discussions of modern biological techniques as means of creating art as opposed to pondering these great philosophical questions Kac brings up.  He quotes Edward Steichen, the first person to actually use genetics as a medium of art when he hybridized flowers and treated them with chemicals to make them undergo mutations, as saying “the science of heredity when applied to plant breeding, which has as its ultimate purpose the aesthetic appeal of beauty, is a creative art.”

While Steichen may have a point, and several valid examples can be called to mind (genetically modifying fruits and vegetables to have more vibrant colors, for example) the practicalities of DNA make it a poor medium for art in some ways.  Maybe it’s the biology student coming out in me, coupled with the fact that we just had an exam over DNA transcription and translation tonight, but when reading about Kac’s “Genesis” project, instead of being struck by the profound ability of bacteria to modify the words of the Bible giving humans control over everything, or the structuring of a protein based on these words in Morse code and how ironic it was to use the technology to create something useless, I was asking the questions “did the protein created begin at a start codon, or just at the beginning of the sentence?” “well what would happen if there was a stop codon somewhere in there, did the protein just end there or does it keep going?” “which end is 3′ and which is 5′ of the DNA, and was that taken into account when the protein synthesis was performed?” “would the antiparallel strand, if translated into Morse code and then words, spell out anything?” “was this inserted into a bacteria as a cyclical DNA or a helix?”

It was very intriguing to see things I’ve done myself in lab translated into the artistic world, and it brought up several of the questions asked in the What is Art? reading.  I have before looked at a representation of a molecule or protein and thought that they were really beautiful molecules, but because they occur naturally, can they still be considered art?  Were the luminescent bacteria I grew in a lab in my AP Biology lab art, just as Kac’s GFP Bunny was, or does one need to declare art as the intent, rather than science, for it to be art?  Can art be a byproduct of science?  Can science be a byproduct of art?

I feel that overall, though, many aspects of bioart frustrated me despite the fascination they held.  Maybe it’s because all my professors throw around phrases like “oh yeah, that’s not an expensive piece of equipment anymore, now you can get them for around 25,000 dollars” or “so each of those micropipetters you have cost about as much as a new iPhone” without blinking, but I feel that resources of this magnitude were used in creating essentially useless genes and proteins.  This thought makes me feel really guilty, because I realize that art is never useless as long as it makes you think (which clearly, the bio-art as a whole brought up a bunch of questions for me) but these are technologies that have the potential to save lives.  While art and research can surely coexist, other means of artistic expression are available, while research is not always so fortunate.

I also took issue with the lack of hard scientific data in the reading.  I assume that Kac was not trained as a biologist, but as a scientist I’m almost constantly left questioning some point.  But then, perhaps that was his goal, as now I’m thinking more and more about what I read and the implications in society it has, as well as about the science.

Questions for consideration:

1. What separates the beautiful and the grotesque?

2. Are social theories just advanced biological theories?  If so, how far separated are we from other species that “lack the ability to reason”?

3. Can art be a byproduct of science?  Can science be a byproduct of art?

In the Introduction of his book, Signs of Life, editor Eduardo Kac explores the modern applications of new technologies and the attitudes with which society meets them. Pointing out the contrast between society’s acceptance of technologies such as in-vitro fertilization and its discomfort with—even fear of—other technologies that involve manipulating life, Kac concludes that what we consider to be “natural” is entirely subjective. While Kac illuminates society’s false divisions between what is “normal” versus “deviant,” he concedes that new technologies do present moral, medical, political, and even economic dilemmas.

            After exploring the “Ecological art movement” of the 1960s and 70s, which capitalized on the use of human body fluids in art, Kac goes on to explain the meaning of “transgenic art”. “Transgenic art” is considered to be “the manipulation of biological materials at discrete levels,” meaning the use of small components of life such as proteins, cells, genes, and nucleotides to create art in the form of new life. Having defined transgenic art, Kac finally moves into exploring its potential to not only impact the art world but to have real-world applications as well. In his description of the book Biotech Culture, Kac explains that while new technologies are becoming sources of inspiration, they are simultaneously and inevitably creating issues of ethics. Kac believes that we are moving into a world in which “technology increasingly shapes cultural sensibility.” In essence, biotechnologies serve to inspire both great art and great public debate.

            In Chapter Ten of his book, Kac further explains the meaning and significance of transgenic art, focusing more on his personal experiences with the field. Kac begins by explaining that his work with transgenic art is a culmination of his experience as an artist. He then explains that “Bio art” is better thought of as “Bio agency” than as “Bio objecthood,” which I took to mean that bio art’s purpose is to create an experience that serves a purpose, rather than to create an object that may or may not inspire thoughtful discourse.

Having previewed his experiences with transgenic art, Kac then delves deeper into projects he has worked on, including “Genesis”, “GFP Bunny”, and “The Eighth Day”, and “Move 36,” all of which were connected in their goals. I found Genesis particularly interesting. The idea of physically creating a gene by translating a sentence from the Book of Genesis in the Bible into a genetic code and then constructing a protein from that code is fascinating to me because it physically acted out what the Bible argues occurred in the process of Creation. Using the “word of God” to create a new life is powerful in and of itself; however, the project was even more significant in my opinion because it inspires inquiry into humanity’s true purpose in relation to nature. The sentence Kac chose to use—“Let man have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth,”—begs the question of whether the Christian doctrine must adapt in order to survive the modern world. In today’s world, where the common media message is that humanity is ruining the earth, this ancient message from the Bible rings ominously. Ultimately humans have the power over other life on earth, for better or for worse, and it is for this reason Genesis is such a provocative project. Genesis proves just how much control we have over other life, thereby inevitably inspiring another round of ethical and political debate.

While reading Kac’s work, I found myself thinking back to some of the topics my genetics class has discussed. Through that class, I have had the opportunity to learn about how scientists manipulate genes for the purposes of treating genetic diseases and creating vaccines. Having seen the real-world benefits biotechnology, I was surprised to read about its applications with relation to the art world. I would have never considered manipulating a gene or creating a new species of plant a form of art. However, going back to the definition of art we came up with as a class earlier in the semester, if “good art” is what inspires thought and contemplation, transgenic art is as good an art as any other we have studied.

Three Questions that came to mind while I was reading these selections:

1. With the advances in both science and bio-art, do you feel that we are re-defining what is “natural?”

2. What do you feel Kac’s purpose was in creating his works of art?

3. Do you feel that humanity has too much control over the fate of the world and other living creatures? Do you feel we are equipt to handle this responsibility?

As Brianna mentioned in her response below, after reading these excerpts from Eduardo Kac’s book, Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond, I am also in awe of the wide array of inspiration that can go into creating and presenting a work of art. Kac begins his introduction to transgenic art through a discussion of the socially controversial aspects of biological manipulation and the “simplified treatment of life” to which scientific developments have led us. He briefly outlines some of the more recent man-made biological phenomenon, and concludes that it would be absurd to encase this discussion into the realm of science and production alone. Doing so, he seems to suggests, would promote the banality of “man-made mutations” within society – something the Kac does not seem to find as acceptable. Cultural thought and ideology are most specifically impacted by humankind’s experimentation in the biological world. Specifically, Kac uses his discussion of biological advancements throughout time to lead into “biomedia” artwork, where he considers its evolution from all disciplines, from Thomas Malthus to Darwin to Picasso, to a bioluminescent bunny, which Kac discusses in a later chapter.

Most interestingly, Kac urges artists who work in the field of biomedia to consider their efforts as having their own “subjecthood.” He says that it is necessary to “articulate a new critical vocabulary to meet the intellectual challenge posed by the emerging bio art documented here…” – a language of respect. It is perhaps our fascination with the potential of biological processes that allows us to look at works using blood and other bodily fluids as an art form. At the same time, however, the fact that living specimens can be genetically manipulated in ways once inconceivable allows for a serious discussion of bioethics and its placement in the aesthetic – rather than economic – world.. I liked how Yves Michaud defined this new art’s impact as existing in the creation of experience rather than production; artwork inspired by the new ability of humankind to create mutants and chimeras disallows the possibility of this practice to become too commonplace.

In Chapter 10, “Life Transformtaion – Art Mutation,” Kac delves even deeper into his description of biotechnology vis-à-vis art by discussing the impact of his own work. I really like his comment that states that “art can, and should, contribute to the development of alternative views of the world that resist dominant ideologies.” This idea seems, in fact, to support the reasoning behind why he creates the sort of work he does. His discussion of the work entitled Genesis allowed me to better understand the potential of transgenic artwork (beyond genetic mutation and canvassed fluid). It was extremely interesting to me that he used the translation and exhibit-induced mutation of DNA to change the context of a Biblical passage. The core purpose of this work seems to be summed up by the symbolism he mentions: we cannot assume the structure of [ideologies] that we inherit because as our culture changes we create new meanings by which to view our world.

At the same time, I was initially confused by the purpose behind the GFP Bunny. And then the more I thought about it, I realized that the global controversy surrounding the GFP Bunny’s creation allows for a constructive, conscious discussion about humankind’s capacity to change the genetic coding of living beings. It’s interesting to me that protein manipulation of this sort could exist so passionately in the aesthetic realm, and really challenged me to consider why work like this is so fascinating to society. The piece Move 36: a transgenic installation which symbolized the defeat of man by machine in a chess game, presents a similar stimulus for thought.  Kac has genetically curled the leaves of a plant and placed it on the exact chessboard spot of the human’s defeat in a game between man and computer. This philosophically could represent the mutated, improved capacity of the human mind when inside a computer, and the ideological conflict of “checkmate” in the context of man, nature, and machine.

Kac’s conclusion states that the notions of what is “natural” need to be viewed under a different light and seriously questioned. He mentions that the more we are all aware of our own “transgenic mutations,” humankind may be able to consider the biotechnological art world with a greater sense of understanding.

Discussion questions:

1. What sort of future does biotechnological artwork have in today’s world? In other words, what political statements can be made through an aesthetic consideration of biotechnology; and how can it open the public’s eyes to the controversies of biotechnological developments?

2. How has transgenic technology become a “dominant ideology” in our society and how do you consider it in relation to your own life?

3. Why do we feel hesitant to accept transgenic manipulation as art?  What about it is uncanny and monstrous?

In the excerpts from Eduardo Kac’s book Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond, the subject of biotechnology and its overlapping with the art realm is introduced in (what I perceive as) an innovative manner that is breaking boundaries for modern artists. Kac begins his discussion with an assertion about “biopower” versus “biopolitics,” claiming that society controls individuals through ideology (“cognitively,” as he states) and through their actual bodies (“physically”). Through these perspectives, the idea of how biotechnology impacts individuals and social relations can be better addressed and interpreted. Kac delves deep into the theories and beliefs of multiple individuals in order to provide a wide range of viewpoints which support his assertions regarding biotechnology and art. First, La Mettrie was a pioneer for the idea that there were parallels to be drawn between living and nonliving entities. Sometimes criticized for his work because of his alleged lowering of the status of humans, contrarily La Mettrie actually “elevated the status of nonhumans” in order to draw comparisons and analogies. Saint-Hilaire supported that organisms are all ruled by a common organic law, while Edward Steichen was the first modern artist to create brand new organisms through traditional and artificial methods. Kac’s focus then shifts towards the notion of “bio art” which is claimed to manipulate processes of life at the genetic level.

In the second excerpt from Kac, the focus revolves around transgenic artwork, a type of art which finds itself bound between “humans, animals, and robots.” Transgenic art is described as being primarily based in genetic engineering in order to create new unique living organisms. Kac presents a few of his personal pieces of transgenic art as a case for analysis, such as the “Genesis” project, the “GFP Bunny,” and “The Eighth Day.” Of the three, I found the process of creating Genesis to be the most interesting; a quote from the Book of Genesis in The Bible was selected and translated into Morse Code; the Morse Code was then translated into DNA base pairs as determined by Kac’s personal method. However, when the DNA base pairs underwent the reverse process back into English, the translation was not exactly the same, lending itself to the idea that “new meanings emerge as we seek to change [the phrase].”

After reading Kac’s descriptions of bioart and transgenic art, I believe that this is probably the most original manifestation of artwork that I have ever been exposed to. As I continue in this class, I find my mind being further and further expanded into considering processes and forms of art that I would never have encountered otherwise. Although a bit heavy at times for someone unfamiliar with the complexities of biochemistry and genetics, I was intrigued by the process of taking essentially amino acids (or their representative form) and from that producing art. Referring back to Kac’s Genesis project, as he broke down a biblical quote into an utterly foundational form – the most basic form in which humans are constructed – and then reconstructed it, the result was an altered form of the verse which to me seems representative of the fact that sometimes our initial interpretations or opinions can always be changed due to a new vantage point. That’s essentially what artists try to convey – a new way of looking at something ordinary so that one’s mind can be expanded, influenced, and broadened. When thinking further about the concept of transgenic art, I am strongly reminded of locative art and how it also presents the viewer with an inventive way of viewing something. While locative art provides a sound experiential to the everyday visual process via GPS systems, transgenic art creates new organisms which allow people to realize relationships between themselves and “nonhumans.”

As a final thought, I found it interesting that new developments can be termed “monstrous” because people do not fully understand them. As Kac so poignantly put it, societies have used “monsters” to illustrate anxieties that reflect major cultural shifts. However, I find it relevant that while transgenic art is sometimes viewed as monstrous by humans, humans have their own inner monstrosities to face.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT:

1. Does our morality or mortality fuel interests in/ oppositions towards biotechnology?
2. Does the beginning of a new era in art (such as the emergence of bioart) inevitably lead to the termination of the previous era?
3. Why is some transgenic art deemed “monstrous”?

Please type in your name after one of the time slots–or leave a comment with your preferred time.  I will fill in the names as they come in.  If for some reason there is a problem, please email me.  During your time slot, we will want to discuss the ideas you have for a final project, which will most likely be a 15 page paper, though other ideas are welcome.  You can bring a list of topics that you are interested in, a list of possible projects, questions that interest you, etc.

1:35pm – 1:55pm:  Yu and Allie

2:00pm – 2:20pm:  Mitch

2:25pm – 2:45pm:  Brianna and Jessi

2:50pm – 3:10pm:  Ashley

3:15pm – 3:35pm:

3:40pm – 4:00pm:

4:05pm – 4:25pm:

4:30pm – 4:50pm:

4:55pm – 5:15pm: Brandi

5:20pm – 5:40pm: Jordan

Hemmet, Tuters and Varnelis Articles

                In “Beyond Locative Media: Giving Shape to the Internet of Things”, Tuters and Varnelis define locative arts and explain its newfound popularity today.  Its name having origins in a Latvian electronic art and media center, the word comes from a Latvian word meaning location. Today locative arts have come to be centered around the individual viewer. It focuses on the “cartography of space and mind, places and the connections between them”. This new art form emerged from our modern do-it-yourself culture and as a rejection of the net art movement.  It morphed out of the net art movement because it encompasses many other media forms, other than the internet. Locative media includes software art, performance, sound art, data visualization, technology-enabled social sculpture and video, among other things.  This new type of art is so different from net art because it doesn’t try to prove its art status. Net art had an elitist audience, whereas locative arts target a mass audience through their use of consumer technologies.  In addition, locative arts hold large potential business opportunities and commercial applications. In fact, many locative media artists are collaborating with industry and government now. Tuters and Varnelis classify locative media projects under two types of mapping: annotative and phenomenological. Annotative mapping is generally concerned with virtually tagging the world, whereas phenomenological mapping traces the action of the subject in the world. Under these two classifications of mapping, many locative performers are attempting to change the world by providing it with more data. The data that these artists present offer people with the opportunities to make future choices with the data in mind. As successful as the locative media movement sounds, there are some critics today that think that these mapping forms of art are actually endangering us instead of enlightening us. One critic, Brian Holmes, thinks that because the US Army controls GPS satellites, and most locative arts projects use GPS as a main device, we are “allowing ourselves to be targeted by a global military infrastructure and to be ‘interpellated into Imperial ideology’”. Other critics think that locative media is enforcing a loss of privacy in the participants lives. I think the benefits of locative media outweigh the potential criticisms. Locative arts make us more aware of the world around us by providing proven data that we can interpret for ourselves and apply to our decisions every day.

In “Locative Arts”, Drew Hemment categorizes the types of locative arts and provides many examples of each.  He defines locative art as the art of mobile and wireless systems that is more focused on the preconditions of moving or being able to move than positioning. There are three main categories of locative arts: mapping, geoannotation, and ambulant (walking or moving about). Mapping is usually done by GPS systems and people moving through the physical environment. Some examples of mapping projects are GPS Drawing by Jeremy Wood and Amsterdam RealTime by Ester Polak. Geoannotation is the making of data to be geographically specific or placing a digital object in space. In this type of media, the individual person is the tool that drives the project forward.  Uncle Roy All Around You, by Blast Theory and Radio Ballet are some examples of this type of locative media.  One thing that is has been appealing to fans of locative arts but also addressed by critics is locatives arts characteristic of being “of the world” but not “in the world”. This speaks to the fact that the way these arts are performed is through the use of people and technology and often times the finished product is not displayed in a gallery setting. This is what makes locative media so much different than other types of art forms that we see today.

Jeremy Hight, Naomi Spellman, Jeff Knolton

Narrative Archaeology

“34 North 118 West”

Jeff Knowlton was the head preparitor at the Orlando Museum of Art for five years where he worked closely with curators in both exhibitions and education. He attends conferences and participates in panels and lectures on interactive media and technology.  He is a recipient of a New Forms Initiative Grant funded by the NEA and the Rockefeller Foundation. He currently is teaching at UC San Diego in the Interdisciplinary Computing Arts Program.

                Naomi Spellman is a transmedia artist and educator. She has exhibited works including networked art, video, computer-based interactive works, and graphic prints. She has over twenty years of experience in commercial work, including art direction, graphic design, photography, illustration, and internet content development.  Today, she teaches in the Interdisciplinary Computing Arts Program at UC San Diego and in the Design and Media Arts Program at the Orange Coast Community College in Costa Mesa.

                Jeremy Hight is an internationally published writer and poet who has created numerous works for multimedia and for exhibition. He wrote a paper titled Narrative Archaeology that was presented at a conference on writing at the MIT. Now, he teaches Visual Communication for Multimedia at Mission College in Los Angeles.

The team of Jeremy Hight, Naomi Spellman, and Jeff Knolton are currently putting into practice this idea of locative media. Their project, “34 North 118 West”, is an interactive experience that takes place in Los Angeles, California. They use technology and the physical navigation of the city simultaneously to create a layered atmosphere for the participant. As you walk through the city, you are given a GPS unit attached to a lap top computer and a set of headphones. On the computer, there is a map that tracks your movements through the streets. When you walk to certain locations (some are shown on the computer’s map and others are left for you to discover) a narrative is read to you through your headphones. The headphones appear to only have sounds in them until activated by your position in the city, then the written narratives are read to you by voice actors. This generates the sense that everything in the city is agitated and alive with unseen mysteries that you have yet to discover.

 The purpose of this project was to create the feeling of being in two places at once. As you pass through the city, a story is read that juxtaposes the sight you are observing. What you are left with is a sort of virtual reality in which the world is completely contradictory to what you would expect.  They wanted to create a dual city in which the world is split into being “connotative and denotative” at the same time. The denotative city is the one that is seen and navigated on the literal level. The narrative archaeology part of the experience is the connotative aspect.  This is considered a form of narrative archaeology because as you walk through the city you peel away layers of culture in the stories you are hearing, as if you were digging for artifacts through layers of dirt.

Questions to think about:

1.       Do you think the narrative archaeology concept used in this project would have the same effect on participants if it wasn’t set in a busy urban setting?

2.       How can being in two places at once cause you to look at your surroundings differently?

3.       Do you think narrative archaeology  is a valid form of locative media?

If you want more information on this project, visit http://www.34n118w.net/