Eugene Thacker presented a project called "ftp_formless_anatomy", which included cross-section animations of human anatomy from the Visible Human Project. He combines the images and through many layers, the images move gracefully in animated pulses. Parts of the body merge and transform until they are almost unrecognizable. The images are not abstract, but formless. Thacker calls it a "delicate balance between familiarity and unfamiliarity". There are four parts to this project: digital anatomy (which is described above), quick-time movies of surgeries, 3-D modeling, and bio informatics (online biological databases).

Q: Please describe your project. What are the key issues and concepts of your project?

ET: "ftp_formless_anatomy" is an attempt to create a critical anatomical database. It is a direct response to the Visible Human Project, a cross-sectional digital anatomy initiated by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (which is sponsored by the National Institute of Health). This project contains an online FTP server from which users may download individual cross-sectional slices (in digital format). A majority of the uses of this material is for medical education and potential surgical application. Media related to this project (CD-ROMs, Java interfaces) is already being integrated into many medical schools in the U.S. Although this digital anatomy of the Visible Human Project has existed for almost a decade, there has been almost no critical discussion of the ways in which it may transform and affect notions of what a body is.

ftp_formless_anatomy is thus an attempt to generate critical thinking about these examples of digital anatomy, or intersections between medical science and computer/networking technologies. It utilizes cross-sectional slices from the Visible Human Project, and, using very simple methods, attempts to "de-form" or "un-form" them. It attempts to defamiliarize these new digital anatomies, and to raise certain questions: are these digital anatomies direct products of computer and networking technologies? Do they constitute examples of "impossible anatomies"? What kinds of knowledge of the body does digital anatomy make possible? What kinds of knowledge does it limit? What kinds of virtual bodies emerge when the anatomical body is rendered "formless"?

Q: How do you position your work within the context of "Life Science"?

ET: Although much of the current scientific paradigm is molecular (genetics, biotech), anatomical science has by no means disappeared; in fact, it forms a kind of "untimely" science, at once very old and very familiar. At issue with digital anatomy is not so much "representation" but uncanny, impossible anatomies that are caught between pure image and the "body itself." These intermediary bodies are unique to anatomical science and arise in ways different from the molecular body. Digital anatomy is an example of a science of the human body, with a very long and complex history, that is now being transformed by computer and networking technologies.

Q: What is your impression of Ars Electronica so far? Have you seen anything that you are particularly interested in?

ET: I was especially interested in the Symposium, where researchers, theorists, cultural critics, activists, and artists were gathered into one room. Not as much polemics as expected, but the talks by Bruno Latour, Dorothy Nelkin, and Daniel Kevles were good.

Q: Is this project representative of your body of work or is it different in some way? What are the differences between this project and your previous projects?

ET: Basically yes, it's representative, in that most of the net.art projects I've done have to do with the body-technology relationship. This one is most explicitly focused on a particular scientific project and field.

Q: What are the structures and support systems that allow you to do your work?

ET: Usually fairly simple technologies, such as some Javascript, dynamic HTML, animations - standard web tech.

Q: As an artist working in a technological or scientific crossover, are you developing alliances and working relationships with commercial or corporate research and development venues?

ET: Only in the sense that a key for this project and others like it will be to reach a non-art audience; this can be done, for instance through linking and publishing.

Q: How do you envision art in the future regarding new technologies, new science and a new millennium? How do you envision your work in this context?

ET: It's difficult to generalize, because there are so many different approaches to working artistically w/ technology. I would hope, though, that the technology-as-tool motif continues to break down, and that new technologies will not so much define art (video, installation, net.art, sound), as they will actually constitute it from the inside.

Q: How do you think the social dynamic of the network art community unfolds when we are together here in real time?

ET: It depends on several factors - the context, the curatorial decisions, the kind of "real time" situation (conference, festival, simulcast), and the audience. openX seems to have been a fairly even mix of press and non-press visitors, most of the non-press people having some connection to art.

Switch V5N3 - Interviews from Ars Electronica '99 by Paula Poole