William S. Burroughs wrote a number of mindfuck novels in the twentieth century, most memorably Naked Lunch, later adapted into an equally mindfucky movie about bug-powder snorting aliens by David Cronenberg. The author has become a cult legend among the postmodern lit set, and now a team of artists has decided to immortalize Burroughs with bio-art project straight out of one of his novels.
Turns out that some friends of the now-deceased author have preserved one of his turds for fun and posterity, and this has become the centerpiece for a strange new lifeform.
The artists explain their simple goals:
In this project, a DNA sample from William S. Burroughs will be isolated, amplified and shot into the nuclei of some cells.
What is the process?
1: Take a glob of William S. Burroughs’ preserved shit
2: Isolate the DNA with a kit
3: Make, many, many copies of the DNA we extract
4: Soak the DNA in gold dust
5: Load the DNA dust into a genegun (a modified air pistol)
6: Fire the DNA dust into a mix of fresh sperm, blood and shit
7: Call the genetically modified mix of blood, shit, and sperm a living bioart, a new media paint, a living cut-up literary device and/or a mutant sculpture.
I can’t wait to see the results.
Read more about this excellent use of mad science via H+ magazine (thanks to H.C. for the tip)
