USA Projects

Killer App is a film and art installation informed by Nobel scientists about critical evolutionary shifts in our age of genetic mutation. 

There have recently been dynamic shifts in human evolutionary possibilities.  Now, DNA can be programmed.   The implications are radical and urgent.  A narrative story that reveals how this new field called regenerative medicine and synthetic biology as well as an art installation that reflects these experiments and possibilities will show the significant implications of the impact and implications this will have on culture and life itself.

Like DNA itself, there are two intertwining strands to this project.  Also like DNA, it will be made of mutable elements that include a film, social meda and an art installation.  The film will show very likely possibilities of a future that can manufacture organs and extend life.  The installation will recreates a functional genetics lab and have cinematic elements. The social media will reach out to a broad audience and question the very nature of bio informatics.

 KILLER APP is part three of the trilogy that I began in 1996 with the films Conceiving Ada and Teknolust, both of which feature Tilda Swinton and  are about about the interface of humans and machines and the implications that creates for humanity.Several Nobel Prize winning scientists have agreed to participate in this project.The script will be derived from interviews with scientists working at the most advanced and radical genetic research labs for synthetic biology and regenerative medicine

Among the labs who have agreed to participate in the project are The Regenerative Institute in North Carolina, Stanford Medical Center, The History of Science Department at NYU and the Sanger Institute at Cambridge. 

 The proven and remarkable research in these labs includes an adapted version of an ink jet printer that enables "printing" of living skin and organs.  In some cases the skin is grafted on wounded soldiers and printer is taken to battlefields and the cells from the soldiers are placed directly into and printed from cartridges, which eliminates biological rejection. Another lab has produced 22 types of living organs and tissues, again from a digital photo printer in the hopes of creating organ banks. A third claims to be able to extend human life to 130 years. This remarkable research triggers profound ethical questions about potential inherent consequences of genetic tampering.

 This collected material, once shot, will be the basis for a script that reflects the true science of our time.  Elements of social media will be initiated concurrent with the script writing and the physical design of the lab. Enactments of the lab interviews and narratives for the future will be embedded into the installation and cut into a narrative film.  After the installation is completed, the film will  and  social media extensions will intertwine into a new narrative. 

This proposal is to shoot more footage in North Carolina, New York, Cambridge and Stanford University. We plan to complete this project and release it by fall 2013 and are very grateful for any financial help you can offer.