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Human Hack Introduction
Thesis - Introduction
Thesis - Sapien Divine
Thesis - Homo Gentian
Thesis - Homo Cyborg
Thesis - Quantified Homo Sapien

Honor Newman

( GB )
MA Industrial Design

Is a discursive designer, engineer, artist. She uses craft and digital mediums to engage people in contemporary technologies and phenomenas which seem to most radically shape our individual and collective futures.

Graduation Project
ʕ ͡° ʖ̯ ͡°ʔ Human Hack ( ͡°Ĺ̯ ͡° )

We are currently experiencing a biotechnological revolution in genetics, cybernetics and quantified self technologies adding artificial selection and enhancement to natural selection. CRISPR, a new gene editing technology, allows us to accurately change targeted parts of our DNA and swap it for the DNA of any other species. Aided by machine learning the growth of genetic technologies seems to be accelerating exponentially.

Biotechnology has the potential to cure thousands of genetic diseases and bring us immunity to hundreds more. It allows us to hack evolution and save multiple species from extinction. However it also has the potential to reduce our diversity, making us more vulnerable to pandemics; create extreme social divides and create a genetic determinism that undermines our humanity.

The human hack is an interactive installation, a pause for caution, a chance to reflect on our future yet to be shaped by these emerging genetic technologies.

The installation takes a photo of the audience member and uses these images to teach an AI and generate new faces that are projection mapped onto mannequin like sculptures.

The projected faces show an ever changing animation creating a symphony of congeniality .

The installation uses a Style Generative Adversarial Network (StyleGAN) to create the images, a type of machine learning that is currently being used as a revolutionary tool in mapping genetic traits).

Thesis
( ͡°_ʖ ͡°) Evolved from Homo Sapiens ┌ʕ º ʖ̯ º ʔ┐

Historically people have always gone along with technological progress. Technology allows us to extend beyond our natural genetic capabilities. The more convenient, intuitive and naturalised the better.

Recent innovations in cybernetics, genetic technologies and quantified self risk changing the very fabric of what it means to be human.

I speculate with these different technologies we have the potential to enhance ourselves into different human subspecies with different agency and social structures.

I use videography to interview these future human subspecies from the year 2145. Four characters, Sapien Divine, Homo Genetian, Homo Cyborg, Homo Sapien Quantified, each with their own dreams, political views and outlook on life, share their views with us and give us insight in their daily lives and what the what future society might look like.

I find perspectival fictional script writing has emergent properties that helped me find my voice in this complex topic of bioethics.

The research for the script comes from a multitude of methods including informal discussion, embodied research, literary reviews, internet scraping, conferences and biohacking and grinding meetups which is a new subculture of DIY biohackers and cyborgs.

KABK Graduation Show 2020 | 10-13 September 2020

© 2020 Royal Academy of Art, The Hague (KABK)