Eduardo Kac and Avital Ronell | Professor Avital (Dept. of Comparative at New York University) Ronell, Eduardo Kac

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.