Presentation at Cyberworlds conference in Banff Center, Canada. Excuse video slides not working, please see YouTube/Vimeo for demo video.

3. The Promethean Alchemist AND
Terra(socio)Sonica: Pouvior/Poussance
Are examples of hypersurfaces: “Able to present dichotomous
relationships, between representation and matter, inside and
outside, organic and inorganic, the hypersurface is the site of
virtual performance.”- Giannachi
My participation in the exchange is the threefold translation
from organic data to computational code, to visual
representation using XML RPC. The viewer pushes this
further by becoming an alChemist… stirring a virtual
primordial soup. While the viewer is firmly planted in the
physical realm, they still experience the dissolve between the
organic and inorganic, humanity and technology.

9. post-biological digital ID
• Post-biological, in this sense, refers to a
redefinition of the embodied subject which
encompasses their location in virtual
environments as well as in the physical.
This involves the creation, through art
practice, of agents that are born from
data, but which take on the appearance of
bio-forms and thus become embodied.
• At the same time these agents are a
differential embodiment of the bodies, which
first generated that data in their everyday
activities.

10. post-biological digital ID
• The existence of embodied information, linked
to and yet not the same as embodied
selves, creates an interface through which
humans negotiate their identities across the
boundaries of different reality states, more
or less virtual, and yet always involving the
mapping or writing of that identity onto ‘a
body’.
• By having bodies both material and
virtual, humans have become post-
biological even as their biology
remains the primary point of
reference for the data
gathering, which enables this
transition to occur.

11. moving beyond post-human
• The concept of humanism or post-humanism
is no longer valid due to biological
progression in the field of
astrophysics/neuroscience/consciousness
and spirituality to name a few
‘sciences’.
• This calls for a discourse that is more
inclusive of other organisms. This is
further expressed by vision
science, particularly atomic force
microscopy, digital telescopes etc.

12. The universe is now
visible from the extremes
of spatial distance and
this calls for the
inclusion of all elemental
beings, organic and
inorganic into a system of
analysis that is
universally inclusive in
its approach

13. PARTICULR PARTICLES (08)

14. Post-human? Post-narcissism!

16. “Nanotechnology thrives in the realm of
the virtual. Throughout its history, the
field has been shaped by futuristic
visions of technological
revolution, hyperbolic promises of
scientific convergence at the molecular
scale, and science fiction stories of the
world rebuilt atom by atom.” Colin
Milburn

17. syncretism
It is a popular belief that we are now, through a media
convergent, participatory culture (integrated socially through a
subnet of platforms) creating a collective intelligence that
exists in this global village of knowledge (data) transfer. This
perspective evades mythological notions of anthropomorphic
interaction. Networked systems that use real time MRDT
expand interaction beyond traditional bio-physical/electro-
physical relationships and are integral to understanding our
relationship with agency.

18. A note on latency within agency
All cybernetic feedback systems endure what is known as time-
space inconsistency. This is the spatial difference between user
and agent and occurs due to latency, bandwidth speed, the
paths chosen for data transfer to occur to name a few examples.
This creates a deterritorialised autonomy in that a potentially
infinite number of users can participate with agents in the gap
between action and response. It is in this democratic space that
participants (real or virtual) can truly become autonomous, as
they are free within the network, emancipated of control and
alleviated of the responsibility to respond.

19. While computer science endeavours to minimise
the effect latency has on functionality, artists
should embrace this in between space.
It is a novel interpretation of the gap
between, representation and ideas, but it goes
beyond traditional dichotomies of the master-
slave metaphor to peer to peer interaction
models, without burdening the issue with the
ethically loaded terminology of “master” and
“slave” which is pervasive in the literature
relating to agency. It is forever expansive in its
invitation to be engaged with

20. ROY ASCOTT‟S PARADIGM

21. Post-Biological Discourse Defined in
Reference to Real Time Networked Data
Transfer
Post-biological, in this sense, refers to a redefinition of
the embodied subject which encompasses their
location in virtual environments as well as in the
physical. This involves the creation, through art
practice, of what we might term autonomous agents
that are born from data but which take on the
appearance of bio-forms and thus become embodied.
At the same time these agents are a differential
embodiment of the „bodies‟, which first generated that
data in their everyday activities.

22. In regards to real time digital participation this
thinking interrogates the meaning and
consequences of the possibility of the notion of
agency and, in doing so, enables us to question
the notion that information, once extracted from
the embodied self and placed within a computer
system, becomes „bodiless‟. In posing that
question we discover that, contrary to what we
might at first assume, data is also embodied.

23. VIRTUAL POST-BIOLOGICAL
IDENTITY

24. AGENCY represent a transient, continually
altered identity, usually that of its author and
acts as an agent, through which users can
engage with virtual platforms. This is
particularly interesting when participants can
physically interact with a virtual deterritorialised
„self‟ in a networked environment and mediate
it through physical engagement.

25. The dispersion of multiple virtual agents
via mixed reality constructs and
expands deterritorialisation to include
reterritorialisation, by facilitating a
dispersive relationship between the
body and its virtual self-referent.

26. Terrasociosonica video!!!

27. Organtrader2010 video!!!!

28. PROMETHEAN ALCHEMIST
Promethean Alchemist is a mixed-
reality, interactive data transfer system
that engages participants in
mythological/alchemic creation and
genetic creation. Biological DNA data is
translated into code using genome
sequencing technology, which is further
manipulated into 2D and 3D visual
graphical outputs in a mixed reality
construct

29. PROMETHEAN ALCHEMIST
The visualization form is the classic DNA
double-helix, which re-enters the physical
world through an XML RPC (Remote
Procedure Call) interface. When two
sections of DNA are brought into close
proximity, the system recognizes their
proximity and „splices‟ (combines) the
data set into one.

30. Steigler and Promethean Alchemy

31. PROMETHEAN ALCHEMIST
Promethean AlChemist is an artistic
rendition of the implications of DNA code
translated into the Deleuzian „fold‟. That
is, the in-betweenness of spaces; “able to
represent dialectical opposites, such as
organic and inorganic, inside and outside.”

32. REFERENCES
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[2] Deleuze and Guatarri, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalisim and Schizophrenia, 1980,p.66)
[3] Levy, P. (1997), Collective Intelligence. trans. Bononno, R. Perseus Books, Cambridge,
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[17] Haraway, 1991,Simians Cyborgs and Women, The reinvention of Nature, p.149-181 Routledge, New York.
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*20+ Colin Milburn, “Atoms and Avatars: Virtual Worlds as Massively-Multiplayer Laboratories,” Spontaneous Generations, University of
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[21] Brian Massumi, Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation, Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 2002.
*22+ ROY ASCOTT, 2008 “C, TECHNOETIC, SYNCRETIC THE PROSPECT FOR ART” LEONARDO VOL 41, #3,MIT PRESS P. 20