Art projects

2016-04-09 The modular body

Floris Kaayk (director), The Modular Body. Online science fiction story, featuring Jos de Mul and many others. VPRO / Serious film, 2016.

The Modular Body is an online science fiction story about the creation of OSCAR, a living organism built from human cells. The protagonist is Cornelis Vlasman, a versatile biologist for whom the path well-travelled is the most uninteresting one by definition. Together with a few like-minded people he therefore starts an independent laboratory in which he experiments with organic materials, on his own initiative, with his own resources and his own team.

After many years of hard work, Vlasman’s team succeeds in creating new life from cells taken from his own body. Under his supervision the world’s first living organism is built: OSCAR.

OSCAR is a prototype (the size of a human hand) consisting of clickable organ modules grown from human cells.

What makes OSCAR special is the thought process preceding the organism, which comes down to this: (human) life can be regarded as a closed system but when it is approached as a modular system this may lead to innovative applications and solutions.

Geert Mul en Jos de Mul. God's browswer: the biotechnological sublime. Performance at the Next Nature Powershow. Amsterdam, Stadsschouwburg, 5 November 2011.

Philosopher and professor Jos de Mul and media artist Geert Mul set out to visualize God's Browser in a unique art-science collaboration. The result is a conceptual poem of words and an excess of images. Welcome in the technological sublime.

The Next Nature Power Show is an intellectual spectacle where artists, scientists, designers, filmmakers, politicians and philosophers present their radical ideas, visionary statements and powerful images on how to design, build and live in Next Nature: the nature caused by people.

More about the NextNature Powershow at NextNature.net

2005-01-20 (Amsterdam) Poetics of Genetics

Jos de Mul, Poetics of Genetics. Performance at the Biggest Visual Power Show. Paradiso Amsterdam, 20 January 20, 2005.

Philosopher Prof. Dr. Jos de Mul – author of countless articles and books like 'Cyberspace Odyssey', 'Domestication of Fate' and 'Database Delirium' – was a speaker at the Biggest Visual Power Show 2005 in Paradiso, Amsterdam. Inspired by the images of Basia Knobloch and music of Lauri Anderson, professor De Mul decided to sing his lecture.

For someone who only has a hammer, everything appears to be a nail. For those who have computers, the world becomes a huge database.

The Biggest Visual Power Show – NextNature - is an intellectual spectacle blending a conference and a pop concert. BVPS mixes movies and live performance, morphs physical experiences into virtual imagination. The 2005 edition of the Biggest Visual Power Show was held in poptemple Paradiso, Amsterdam. Over twenty artists, scientist, writers, filmdirectors, architects, designers, presented their radical ideas, visionary statements and powerful imagery on how we can design, build and live in Next Nature.