Eduardo Kac & Avital Ronell: Life Extreme: An Illustrated Guide to New Life

Humankind has imagined and depicted fantastical creatures since the formation of the first societies. Beasts such as the Chimera, the Golem, the Minotaur and Galatea could be said to be culturally symptomatic. Today, in the twenty-first century, we witness the emergence of a new class of beings: organisms that are first imagined and then--through the agency of biotechnologies--brought to life. What once was myth is today a medium. In Eduardo Kac: Life Extreme, Kac, the pioneer of "bio art" who is internationally recognized for celebrated works such as "Genesis" and the fluorescent green "GFP Bunny," has selected 36 new organisms and invited the prominent philosopher Avital Ronell to discover these new beings. The book, published in Dis Voir's new Encounters series, is prefaced by Kac's "Anthroduction" and includes a whimsical taxonomy of taxonomies, offering a unique classification method for future species.

For more than two decades Eduardo Kac has been at the forefront of the new global culture in a digitally networked world. With deep roots in poetry and philosophy, Kac's art has for the last 10 years developed a poetics of life and evolution. Kak lives and works in Chicago, where he is Associate Professor of art and technology at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.