Meniscus (1996–2001) is a series of interactive web works that explore ideas relating to the body, subjectivity, and the interaction between knowledge systems and belief systems. The ease of personal transformation and improvement promised by the convergence of new media technologies and biological research comes in for some serious lampooning.
“Who said self-improvement had to be hard work? Now you can change with just a few clicks of the mouse! Evolve yourself and others quickly and without pain. Achieve in only seconds what would take nature generations…”
Personal Eugenics, the latest installment, explores the expectations of living in a cultural tradition that privileges progress above all else. Eugenics was conceived in the 19th century as the science that would facilitate the improvement of the human race through selective breeding. While eugenics was discredited by the “excesses” of the Nazi holocaust, its thinking continues to be a prominent strand in contemporary thought, manifest perhaps most explicitly in the emerging field of biotechnology.
And yet, our drive to modify and augment the human body seems to be undermined by the emergence of communication technologies through which our experience is becoming increasingly disembodied. Personal Eugenics allows the user to reconfigure their face as easily as they might change their online identity.
Elastic Masculinities, 1998. interactive web art and print, computer, web-cam, laser print, kiosk, desk, chair. dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist
