I am looking for collaborators to join me on an exploration of the mind bending and state altering convergence of synthetic biology, posthuman/cyborg critical theory, and the interface between virtual reality and artificial life systems. The next chapter of last year's very popular GMP pitch reel on nanotechnology synthetic biology presents a radical challenge to our understanding of what it means to be human in the 21st century. While exhibiting tremendous possibilities for coping with the acute environmental and health demands of our times, synthetic biology might also be an atomized, self-reproducing Frankenstein. Does the ability to artificially engineer life systems and control the environment fundamentally change our understanding and perceptions of nature, or does it present a new epoch in the history of a cyborg species that uses language, technology and prosthetics to socially develop? Where does the convergence of revolutions in genetic engineering and virtual information technology at the fringes of what we consider to be real fit in with our contemporary understandings of the 'other' reflected in ideas about race, terrorism, new media and community in an age of globalization? How might we as a group try to map these changes, or, at least, encounter the maps that are currently circulating.

Please email me if you are interested in making this your GMP final project phillip_gara@brown.edu and I will send you a more in-depth project proposal. While I have a lot of ideas, potential leads and a list of key texts in cyborg critical theory, I am hoping that new voices will add invaluable new directions to the project. Thank you for considering the project and I am hoping to create a team asap to enter the matrix of the Rhizomic Revolutions.

This is a very rough, and probably somewhat tangential/confusing set of introductory clips for a GMP Pitch Reel final project based off a documentary on synthetic biology that I am working on. Please view it as a jumping off point for the Pitch Reel, and not anything fixed or solid.