Eduardo Kac's new book

By David Pescovitz at 6:03 pm Sunday, Jan 15

Many people are familiar with artist Eduardo Kac only through a bunny named Alba that rose to fame in 2000. Of course, Alba was certainly worthy of attention. She was genetically engineered to glow green under fluorescent light. But GFP Bunny, the art project that gave birth to Alba, was only one moment in Kac's career, albeit a particular provocative one. From early pre-Web projects in the 1980s, including experiments with Videotext (Minitel), to his pioneering online telerobotics work during the 1990s, to the new genre of "transgenic" art embodied by Alba, Kac's entire career is about understanding, or at least questioning, the technologies we're creating and their impact on us. (And our impact on them.) Telepresence and Bio Art: Networking Humans, Rabbits and Robots is a marvelous new collection of Kac's essays. Unlike so much art writing that puts me to sleep, these texts aren't filled with impenetrable theory or self-centered navel gazing. Rather, Kac writes clearly, engagingly, and humbly about the history (and possible futures) of this emerging art movement, and his place in it.
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