Melinda Rackham (Australia)
Carrier, 1999
bio
Melinda Rackham is an artist and writer residing in east coast Australia, who has worked online in her domain www.subtle.net, with digital image and poetic and theoretical hypertextual narrative since 1995.
Her web sites, carrier - viral symbiosis in the virtual and biological domains; a.land - a poetic journey through fragmentary digital landscapes; tunnel - the exploration of the slimey arenas of cybersexual practice; and line - an elegant investigation of location, intimacy and virtual identity; have been included in Arco Electronico, Being Digital, Fusion, Shrinking Worlds, Foldback, Arts_Edge, Beyond Interface, Comtec Art99 and Utopia.
Rackham is currently a Phd Candidate in Virtual Media at COFA, UNSW;
contributes texts to art and culture publications; is an active participant
on net.art and theory mailing lists; and occasionally lectures on gender,
virtual community and net.art. Recent conference presentations include
Polar Circuit in Finland, Contagion in Australia, and Invencao -Thinking
the Next Millenium in Brazil.
carrier
+ carrier investigates viral symbiosis in the biological and virtual domains, specifically the hepatitis C (HCV) epidemic, repositioning viral infection as positive biological merging with the flesh, rather than taking a defensive medical response to illness which sites the body as a detached battleground.
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carrier is artificial intelligence embedded in the worldwide web - viral
life swarming within the nervous system of our planet.
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carrier explores the textures of intersections rather than contrasts of
oppositions, elevating invalid code in a symbiotic ecology in both the
biological and virtual domains.
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carrier is a love story - an intimate romance between invasive virus and
sentient host, an updated cyborg model for the emerging millennium, as
we seek a way to culturally reposition ourselves to the dissolving natural/artificial/species
divide.
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carrier positions the contagious virus as a lively agent adapting in response
to a changing environment, engaging with, and replicating within the receptive
body.
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carrier draws blood from immunology and immunosemiotics, integrating the
dynamic of interrelating pure codes, whether they be within the immune
system or the computer operating system.
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carrier site integrates theoretical texts, digital imagery, synthesised
voice, vrml, shockwave, java script, java applets and data based interaction;
with imagery sourced from medical research, insect communities, and binary
coding, and includes intimate real life experiences of living with chronic
viral illness, which have been contributed anonymously from the internet.
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carrier project originated from my research in 1997 in gender, net art
practice and chronic viral illness, and site production has been funded
by the Australia Council for the Arts, for release in July 1999.