︎“BIOGRAPHIES”
Mapping a Journey to Past Lives
A archive folder based on a fiction I wrote that
speculates on widly varying lives for one genetic identity.
- Featured in STA 100 Annual
• Fiction
I was asked to examine my daily routine, create a conceptual matrix analyzing my activities and experiences between two geographical points of everyday life, and enter words as coordinates and organize useful vocabulary into meaningful groupings.
I chose the path from my apartment to school. Since I'm living right next to my school, for me the path seems more of a three-dimensional space than a linear journey. My daily walk to school reminds me of an imperfect beauty with the unfinished graffitis on walls, discarded objects and fallen leaves on the ground, flying crows, the light of sun and shadows of buildings etc. Therefore I collect words that summarize this image: imperfect, impermanent, incomplete, indefinable and nature.
Use elements of the matrix as conceptual constraints to think about the story of a journey in a symbolic way. My fiction is about a woman involved in a life extension program and started looking through her past lives recorded in the archive. It stays true to historical and physical facts. The technology introduced changes from the ALCOR (frozen bodies) program to a possible clone technology in the future. I decided to choose the well-known actress, Marilyn Monroe, to expand the fiction.
I was asked to examine my daily routine, create a conceptual matrix analyzing my activities and experiences between two geographical points of everyday life, and enter words as coordinates and organize useful vocabulary into meaningful groupings.
I chose the path from my apartment to school. Since I'm living right next to my school, for me the path seems more of a three-dimensional space than a linear journey. My daily walk to school reminds me of an imperfect beauty with the unfinished graffitis on walls, discarded objects and fallen leaves on the ground, flying crows, the light of sun and shadows of buildings etc. Therefore I collect words that summarize this image: imperfect, impermanent, incomplete, indefinable and nature.
Use elements of the matrix as conceptual constraints to think about the story of a journey in a symbolic way. My fiction is about a woman involved in a life extension program and started looking through her past lives recorded in the archive. It stays true to historical and physical facts. The technology introduced changes from the ALCOR (frozen bodies) program to a possible clone technology in the future. I decided to choose the well-known actress, Marilyn Monroe, to expand the fiction.
• Artifacts
To illustrate the fiction in believable ways, I collected and created data, generated a variety of discrete but interrelated graphic artifacts, collect objects, create documents, fake proofs. I collected the Monroe's past photos，videos, and written pieces, as well as photos of actresses that looks like Monroe at different times as artifacts for the archive, also including a personal journal recording the process of her rebirth, and a membership application for the Alcor life extension program.
• Outcome
The archive is presented as a closed folder organized in a chronological way. The folder illustrats a journey to past lives. Starting from the first natural life of Marilyn Monroe, and an extended lifetime after awakening from the frozen body, followed by the clone child of herself. The archive created three different lives for Monroe and placed her at different times.
• Afterthought
The project speculates on widly varying lives for one genetic identity, and somehow offered me a private relief from the anxiety of being unique or important. It diffuses a sense of nihilism when we are deeply impacted by our time, which is randomly assigned.
To illustrate the fiction in believable ways, I collected and created data, generated a variety of discrete but interrelated graphic artifacts, collect objects, create documents, fake proofs. I collected the Monroe's past photos，videos, and written pieces, as well as photos of actresses that looks like Monroe at different times as artifacts for the archive, also including a personal journal recording the process of her rebirth, and a membership application for the Alcor life extension program.
• Outcome
The archive is presented as a closed folder organized in a chronological way. The folder illustrats a journey to past lives. Starting from the first natural life of Marilyn Monroe, and an extended lifetime after awakening from the frozen body, followed by the clone child of herself. The archive created three different lives for Monroe and placed her at different times.
• Afterthought
The project speculates on widly varying lives for one genetic identity, and somehow offered me a private relief from the anxiety of being unique or important. It diffuses a sense of nihilism when we are deeply impacted by our time, which is randomly assigned.
