Mind thGAP
Contents
- 1 CGCBopen releases
- 2 Booklet / Fanzine of the Transgenic Human Genome Alternatives Project
- 3 Mind thGAP Lab Series Overview
- 4 16. May 16-18 CEST : thGAP – Transgenic Human Genome Alternatives Project
- 5 30. May 16-18 CEST : GOSPHA – Generic Open-Source Plasmid for Human Arts
- 6 6. June 16-18 CEST : CGCB – Creative Germline Constructs Bank
- 7 Collaborators
- 8 Funding and support
Mind thGAP, see description on website, is a collaborative Programme with Hackteria ZET – Open Science Lab in Zürich – Research Node: ReproTech & Art / Germline Hacks and Designer Babies, Adam Zaretsky Cristian Delgado, Paula Pin and Marc Dusseiller, with representatives of psyFert and BEAK, the Bioart Ethical Advisory Kommission.
Current Collaborators: Adam Zaretsky (USA), Cristian Delgado (MX), Marc Dusseiller (CH), Paula Pin (ES) invite you to join!!!
Join our discussions on the forum if you want to collaborate with us!
Let's make those babies together!
CGCBopen releases
With the release of the first fully knitted and reviewed GOSPHAs to the CGCBopen - Creative Germline Constructs Bank we are starting a new wiki page to aggregate them all!
Booklet / Fanzine of the Transgenic Human Genome Alternatives Project
A reflection on the workshops series Mind thGAP - Transgenic Human Genome Alternatives Project, and an invitation to collaborate on the CGCB - Creative Germline Construct Bank, an online open source bioinformatics database of diverse genetic constructs for germline entry using the GOSHPA - General Open Source Plasmid for Human Arts, as a chassis for transgene infection into a newly fertilized ovum.
Adam Zaretsky, Marc Dusseiller, Cristian Delgado, Paula Pin, Mary Maggic and many collaborators worldwide. The events were held in early summer 2021 at the Hackteria ZET - Open Science Lab in Zürich, Switzerland, and online.
"Genetically modifying the human germline with novel and creative genomic alterations is more aesthetically nuanced in an orthogonal to the contemporary sense than your average clinical CRISPR baby applique."
Its a zine, and QR code invite to collab and be a part of the only online open source bioinformatics database of diverse genetic constructs for human germline entry. All the CGCB genes were chosen publicly by amateur bioartists, citizen scientists and DIY-BIO hobbyists. used for for transgene infection into a newly fertilized ovum during home IVF, garage human embryo design and transgenic human alternative brood breeding without copyright or proprietary nuisance.
Mind thGAP Lab Series Overview
How to join?
Please register here: https://mega.hackteria.org/index.php/apps/forms/Bi3ACxKRGna8F968
(or if everything fails by mail to dusjagr and state if you want to attent locally and/or as part of our virtual hybrid format online.)
Online virtually
The labs will be interactive and live online on BigBlueButton: https://www.digitale-gesellschaft.ch/pub/hackteria
On ground - Zürich
Hackteria ZET - Open Science Lab, 3.Stock, Bitwäschereie, Neue Hard 12, 8005 Zürich
On the Island hybrid
Furthermore we can hang-out and have longer discussions after the workshop using our workadventure map: http://island.hackteria.org/
Start your own BBB?
16. May 16-18 CEST : thGAP – Transgenic Human Genome Alternatives Project
How to read scientific papers for artists:
Learn how anyone can do research as an art project for the genetic modification of future humans.
Lets find some genes that most people don’t know about. We can learn about the open science sciHub interface. This way, you can download from the scientific community of mind from both sides of the pay wall. Try experiments in creative misreading of scientific papers. You will never feel bored, confused or annoyed by specialist lingo. Develop skills in translating powerful scientific lingo and boring scientific imagery into the playful, dataless and incomprehensible symbolic universe of the arts. Upload your research to the Creative Germline Constructs Bank (CGCB) to start a first entry.
Special Guests: Larval Rockstars: Praba Pilar and Anuj Vaidya Born of prophesy, and precipitated by the hubris of man, LRS brings tidings of a new future – a post-human future, and offers movement from necrotic egocentrism to biotic ecocentrism. LRS intersect the bio-techno-critical and the absurd as the segmented paramythology of larvae of the post-human future. “Behold the larva we hold between us – the formless, shapeless, and unknowable potential for new life on earth.”
In this first lab we will cover:
- Searching in Online Databases for Genes
- Doing art research on a few genes
- Be ready to explore online bioinformatics databases and scientific publications.
- Art as research is about creative interpretation.
- We will find genes from different organisms, what they do where in which organism, etc.
- But we will also use creative techniques to demolish the concept of the actual through writing, collage, cut-up poetry and free associative madlib.
Your research contributes to one third of a Creative Germline Constructs Bank (CGCB) entry… to be completed by yourself or others in labs 2 and 3.
thGAP - Links to mega cloud
Form 1 Creative Germline Construct Bank (CGCB):
https://mega.hackteria.org/index.php/apps/forms/pcj2xDLEqNzZZ4Ld
You can fill this out multiple times and the link remains open so you can fill it out more than once or try it with friends.
Data Dump: your personal folder on the CGCB. Upload to here (make your own folder on the cloud to upload any of your text files, images, screen grabs, pdfs, and even audio, videos, performance or other responses related to our research.
https://mega.hackteria.org/index.php/s/tWbmPQHAxkPWftG
This is for artistic data, so anything you want to upload here is a form of qualitative and even quantitative data… (Preferred file types are .doc .rtf. .docx .pdf .jpg .gif .aif .wav .mov and .mp4, preferred size is not too big.)
thGAP - Resources
Shortlist of links for Mind thGAP_ lab:
GenBank: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/
UCSC Genome Browser:
http://genome.ucsc.edu/cgi-bin/hgGateway
SCI-HUB - OPEN Scientific papers serving the community of mind over commercial pay-walls.
Reflections and Documentation
30. May 16-18 CEST : GOSPHA – Generic Open-Source Plasmid for Human Arts
World citizen gene hunting and opensource CGCB banking:
Take an in-silico tour of public science bioinformatics databases. Select, Copy and Paste Genes for fun and pleasure through creative bioinformatics explorations. Become adept in the Art of online Gene Hunting.
Learn how to find a gene and a gene sequence online. Interested in having an effect on the diverse possibilities of future transgenic mutants? Want to be a bioartist? Make art, poetry and an infectious human genome attenuator through our Amateur Gene Hunting lab. Copy whole gene sequences and paste them into the GOSPHA our non-proprietory, in silico, human gene editing guide design. Upload to the Creative Germline Constructs Bank (CGCB) for a chance to alter the history of the future of our species.
GOSPHA - Links to mega cloud
Form 2 for Lab 2:
You can fill this out multiple times and the link remains open so you can fill it out more than once or try it with friends.
Data Dump: your personal folder on the CGCB. Upload to here (make your own folder on the cloud to upload any of your text files, images, screen grabs, pdfs, and even audio, videos, performance or other responses related to our research.
https://mega.hackteria.org/index.php/s/tWbmPQHAxkPWftG
This is for artistic data, so anything you want to upload here is a form of qualitative and even quantitative data… (Preferred file types are .doc .rtf. .docx .pdf .jpg .gif .aif .wav .mov and .mp4, preferred size is not too big.)
GOSPHA - Resources
Reflections and Documentation
6. June 16-18 CEST : CGCB – Creative Germline Constructs Bank
Become a bioart critic and bioart ethicist overnight:
What is an bioart critic? This lab explains how to be a bioart critic. How easy is it to vamp the language of art criticism? Lets do art criticism of genes! Creative writing is an appropriate response to the language of science. In this lab we review your a range of genes as potential gene-edited human art projects. Our explorations include image research into anatomy, scientific imagery, lateral web image soothsaying, and the power of naming/neologism. A bioarts critique of a gene helps you understand the role of human gene editing as a part of bioart – a time-based, new media, trans-species conceptual art form with the aftertaste of art and technology interdisciplinarity.
What is a bioethicist? Mind THGAP_ also provides novel approaches towards a public understanding of technology and legal, social, ethical and libidinal issues (LESLI) surrounding critical germline genetic editing. Bioart Ethical Advisory Kommission (BEAK) will present on the biodiverse effect of novel genetic aesthetics on the future of human anatomy. Imagined HumanPhenotypes from the Creative Germline Constructs Bank (CGCB) of the Transgenic Human Genome Alternatives Project (thGAP_) will be analized for potential positive and negative effects of these proposed reprogrammed humans.
How to unwork a contract. Sick of hitting “I Accept” for every contract you ever sign online? This part of the lab allows for radical unworking of your open source contract for your human gene editing guide design construct.
Finalize entries of the Creative Germline Constructs Bank (CGCB) by adding your reviews.
CGCB - Links to mega cloud
Form 3 for Lab 3: https://mega.hackteria.org/index.php/apps/forms/ZGKGnk4NtTiRAwwm
Final knitted database entries: https://mega.hackteria.org/index.php/s/SmqG7CS32NZoPGT
CGCB - Resources
Reflections and Documentation
Collaborators
Adam Zaretsky (US/PT)
Zaretsky is a Wet-Lab Art Practitioner mixing Ecology, Biotechnology, Non-human Relations, Body Performance and Gastronomy. Zaretsky stages lively, hands-on bioart production labs based on topics such as: foreign species invasion (pure/impure), radical food science (edible/inedible), jazz bioinformatics (code/flesh), tissue culture (undead/semi-alive), transgenic design issues (traits/desires), interactive ethology (person/machine/non-human) and physiology (performance/stress). A former researcher at the MIT department of biology, for the past decade Zaretsky has been teaching an experimental bioart class called VivoArts at: San Francisco State University (SFSU), SymbioticA (UWA), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), University of Leiden’s The Arts and Genomic Centre (TAGC) and with the Waag Society. He has also taught DIY-IGM (Do-It-Yourself Inherited Genetic Modification of the Human Genome) at New York University (NYU) and Carnegie Melon University (CMU). He also runs a public life arts school: VASTAL (The Vivoarts School for Transgenic Aesthetics Ltd.) His art practice focuses on an array of legal, ethical, social and libidinal implications of biotechnological materials and methods with a focus on transgenic humans.
Marc Dusseiller (CH)
Marc Dusseiller aka dusjagr is a nomadic researcher and workshopologist. He is part of the Center for Alternative Coconut Research, co-founder of SGMK, Bitwäscherei Hackerspace Collective and the Hackteria network. Before travelling the world for making DIY / DIWO laboratories for creative biological experimentation with living media, Marc entered the world of DIY electronics, designing printed circuit boards for synthesizers and organizing workshops and festivals mostly in Zürich, Taipei and Yogyakarta. He also loves coconuts.
Cristian Delgado (MX)
Cristian Delgado is a hacktivist and enthusiast of open knowledge, from arts to science and technology, founder of Nehenemi Labs (2004), a initiative to bring hacking activities and open/libre phylosophies to scientific and artistic research, with collaborations with National and International Universities and Institutions(MIT, UNAM, UAQ, CERN, ICTP), to NGOs (UNESCO, UNEP, ..) projects (Piksel No., Arte+Ciencia), also he works on critical view to uses of science and technology and knowledge freedom and open/libre source. Many of his projects are on genetic engineering, electronics, programming, non-conventional computing, biocomplexity,dynamical systems,etc.
Paula Pin (ES)
Paula Pin (Lugo/Spain, 1982), is a researcher and artist activist which has a strong inclination towards research and experimentation processes with collective and free technologies.
She has undertaken residencies at institutions such as CERN, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Art school KASK in Gent, Prototyp_ome at Hangar Barcelona, Gaité Lyrique in París, Querly Ecologies at Click Festival and GOSH - Gathering for Open Science Hardware in Shenzhen, China. Although her work emerges from within a scientific tradition of research and experimentation, running throughout drawing to abstract video, circuit bending and lab experiments but always located in the intersection where biology, science and queer art collide. Her active participation at Pechblenda Lab and Transnoise laboratories besides her social ideals and the work as a noise performer, has taken her to many spaces and contexts, specially to the point of starting to collaborate in Hackteria, a global biohacking network. Pin had opportunities to give workshops as a facilitator all around the world, always putting the focus on spreading knowledge and sharing experiences on transfeminist horizontal perspectives.
Zohar Messeca-Fara (IL)
Interaction designer, electronics practical engineer and audio visual experimentalist. Founder of RedbootkeH Experimental record label Since 2004. Lab manager at shenkar SE department since 2012 praxis in analog electronics, robotics, physical computing and wearables.
Zohar and Yair Reshef have started idiot.io as a platform for workshops, research and DIY electronic kits.
Larval Rock Stars (US)
Praba Pilar and Anuj Vaidya
Born of prophesy, and precipitated by the hubris of man, LRS brings tidings of a new future – a post-human future, and offers movement from necrotic egocentrism to biotic ecocentrism. LRS intersect the bio-techno-critical and the absurd as the segmented paramythology of larvae of the post-human future. “Behold the larva we hold between us – the formless, shapeless, and unknowable potential for new life on earth.”
More Credits
H C-(M)
Thanks to H C-(M) @hoza_dossil_fuel for his fantastic animated graphics! See more of his work on tecno-grafias
H.C-(M) (aka Hoçâ C-M / hoça-dossil-fuel) is a writer, graphic designer and cultural vector who focuses on interviews-as-templates to explore topics fuelled by Silicon Valley criticism, guerilla media, surveillance aesthetics and technology + information. C-(M)'s work has been featured on platforms such as the Institute of Network Cultures, The Wrong Biennale, TTT in Art & Science, The Quietus, Nero Editions, Foreign Objekt and Metal Magazine.
Miranda Moss
And Miranda Moss for her help with the posters!
Funding and support
Mind thGAP is a collaborative Programme with Hackteria ZET – Open Science Lab in Zürich and Adam Zaretsky, and is supported by our friends and hosts from the local community around the hackerspace collective Bitwäscherei, the Casa Coconut, Swiss Mechatronic Art Society, Center for Alternative Coconut Research, a.n.y.m.a., hackuarium, RandeLab, GaudiLabs and many more!
DONATIONS WELCOME!!
NFP – non-fundable project : The Mind thGAP programme series sadly has not yet been successfully raising fundings, approval by the Kt. of Zurich was rejected, other sources delayed. In the meantime we are full on continuing and offering our enthusiasm to make this happen and can rely on some small profits from recent crypto donations to the HCFF (Hackteria Crpyto Food Fund). Feel free to support our activities with donations on the ethereum chain (ERC-20 tokens only) or paypal.