Corinne Whitaker

What if you and I are works of fiction, genetic fiction?

What if this life we embrace as unique is really God's latest nightmare? And what happens when She wakes up?

Just as there are extraordinary things happening in the ways that computers allow us to visualize the body human, there are incredible alterations occurring in the field once known as Biology. Carbon-based humans are increasingly being seen as conveyors of self-destructive genetic information systems, based upon inefficient patterns of growth, maturation, and decay. New life forms are close on our heels, not next century, perhaps as early as next decade.

Why new creatures? Because the current human genetic model incorporates death and disease, both seen as inefficient information codes. Because humans are cumbersome for inter-galactic travel and expensive to maintain. Because at heart, the time for human existence is coming to an inevitable close, not by collision with an asteroid but by the exercise of our own ingenuity. The brains that enabled us to out-think faster, stronger animals are now designing our own successors as the you and me of yesteryear disappear into the dustbins of biology.

And what will these new forms of life look like? Though their marrow may be replaced by minute snap-on particles of information, their parts easily substitutable and elective, what formal aspect will they use to present themselves to the world?

As digital artists we dare to consider what lives on the other side of infinity, to envision creatures without arms, or legs, or the other features that mirror ourselves. We explore those places on the map of being that others fear to visit. We cross the borders of biological sanity, clutching our visitor's pass. We think of absurdities and othernesses, brown dwarfs and gluons, and six-flavored quarks. We imagine new beings that never sleep, don't wet their beds, don't throw up over Mars.

These images, all digitally created, reflect the new view of being human that is emerging as technology and biology fuse.

For as you become fiction and I become a lie, how will we know tomorrow? And what happens if tomorrow doesn't know us?

c. Corinne Whitaker 1998-2005

Artists's Bio:

Corinne Whitaker, aka the Digital Giraffe, has been acclaimed for over twenty years as one of the pioneering artists in the fields of digital imaging and digital sculpture. She has exhibited nationally and internationally in over 80 solo and 200 group exhibitions, including a large solo exhibit entitled "Corinne Whitaker dot Uncom" at the San Bernardino County Museum in Californa. Her work has been published in over 80  magazines, books, catalogs, media and newspapers, including the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. She presented the first digital fine art exhibition in India and has exhibited in Thailand, Germany, England, Japan, China and Russia, where she is currently showing work at the Novosibirsk State Art Museum. She has also been interviewed on live simulcast on London TV and the Internet. She has lectured extensively, including "Look Ma. No Paintbrush!" at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She is currently represented by the Blue Room Gallery in San Francisco and the Fulcrum Gallery online (www.fulcrumgallery.com).

Whitaker is one of the featured artists in the CD ROM and book, "Women Artists of the American West".  Her award-winning Digital Giraffe journal (www.giraffe.com), is now in its 11th year of continuous web publication. It receives roughly one million hits annually and has been visited by 144 nations.

www.giraffe.com

Sculpture 3.4.05B

Sculpture 6.4.04C