Shu Lea Cheang

In an era of post-net-crash, GENOM Co. takes the human body hostage to initiate BioNet. A network made up of re-engineered erythrocytes. These red blood cells, which would function as carriers to deliver oxygen to the body tissues are reconfigured into DNA retainers storing and reprocessing data or memories. In its profitable biotech engineering scheme, GENOM Co. harvests orgasmic data transactions to produce red pills for mass pharmaceutical markets.

The exhibition takes scenes from Shu Lea Cheang’s (b. 1954 in Taiwan) sci-fi viral alt-reality film UKI (2023) between gallery walls pasted with G-stamped red blood cells. We become part of this science fiction playing out with bio-informatics, bio-engineering and intricate network construct that we follow on advertisement screens and in a video of GENOM’s bio-scientists debating the operation’s data mining and its potential glitches in creating an in-between species.

We have departed from the gender binary and deviated into transgenic discourse. We are part of integrated circuits of bio-networks which build upon our bio-info data.