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Consider the following scenario: There could be an institution in the future, similar to insurance companies, that deals with the storage of our DNA. Not only is the conservation of our body the goal, but so is the complete rebuilding of ourselves. What if we were to be restored in 200 years from our DNA? It is therefore not life insurance we are talking about. Rather it is a kind of reincarnation insurance. Let’s put aside all the organizational aspects. The financial position of our future self is of secondary importance. Considerations regarding accommodation, career opportunities and other such things also do not matter. All these aspects are covered by the insurance. More important is the question of what this institution needs to consider when it comes to a possible restoration. Is our body alone ever enough to define ourselves?

Every person goes through various phases during his life in which he modifies, adapts or redefines his body. In addition, we make voluntary or involuntary changes to ourselves. This can be done through simple reversible representations of ourselves. What kind of shoes do we wear? What clothes can we identify with? Or even simpler, how do we style our hair? These elements are important aspects when it comes to our self-definition. However, we experience much deeper events throughout our lives—unwanted surgeries, accidents or illnesses are also part of this, as are wanted modifications such as tattoos, plastic surgery or similar interventions. During a reconstruction, these modifications would have to be reapplied to the body.

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WORK OUT #2: True/False – The Path in Between Exhibition - first years students A line connecting five different approaches to the conception of truth, from its binary behavior in logic, to an unrecognizable interwoven construction of it. This exhibition displays the outcomes of examining the blurred borders of truthfulness and the hazy area around its possible values. How much room is given for self-interpretation? Works by Ivonne Gracia Murillo, Jasjote Grewal, Nora Lengyel, Marthin Rozo, Marc Schuran Cooperation partner: Martin Reinhart (Principal investigator PEEK/FWF, Data Loam, University of Applied Arts Vienna) Truth/False Artist Statements: IVONNE GRACIA MURILLO proposes a conceptual collaboration between the digital media of man and the natural environment, based on the idea of using DNA as a means of storing encoded images, in the opposite direction to the progress of the latter in order to obtain the exact decoded information of the original, as a method of controlling nature to please modern human needs. If promulgated to mutation through several generations of reproduction in the living animal this information of quantity, tone, and position of the pixels would become the natural matter through which the image would evolve out of mechanical methods, ergo eliminating our prediction and control over the anticipation of output. Man goes from using his means to control nature, to using them to connect with it. JASJOTE GREWAL explores questions of truth, autonomy and meaning by playing with the loose and free construction of what is deemed as true and what it signifies. In face of a binary conception of truth that one is often confronted with, her piece attempts to break down this dichotomy, as well as illustrate that meaning can only ever lie in the hands and the eyes of the beholder. NORA LENGYEL is researching how the two boolean values true and false can be encrypted to patterns, colors or to other visual elements. She experiments with ho

The storage medium ‘Capsule’ collects these events. Just as in a backup file, the various stages of life are conserved and safely stored for later reconstruction. Have we already experienced the right time for this, or are we still waiting for it? Which one of these tubes contains the right body for your reconstruction?

Image Credit: Rafael Lippuner
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Image Credit: @hanschflansch