J. DOE, AN ABSTRACT IDENTITY
John Doe is a multiple-use placeholder name used when the true name of a person is
unknown or is being intentionally concealed. In the context of law enforcement in the United
States, it is often used to refer to a corpse whose identity is unknown or unconfirmed. This
name is also often used to refer to a hypothetical “everyman”.
WIKIPEDIA
The series “J. Doe, an abstract identity” dives on the concept of identity in itself, reflecting upon what is it that really makes us be who we are. Working with the ultimate idea of the collective and anonymous subject, I pose the question of the self-construction of the SELF, in present times of groundbreaking technology and genetic engineering advances, and the never more up to date concept of hyper-reality, intertwined with a surrealist gaze. Weighing the roles of the psyche and the physical in the emerging personality awareness and the desire of modifying oneself, is it possible to make an abstraction of the identity, reckoning the social and the media that condition and influence the construction of the self? Which types of changes a person can undergo, without losing his identity, or ceasing to exist?
While developing part of the series, I took digital photos through an optical microscope of different human body samples which I bought through the Internet. These processes and working methods raise the question on the ownership of identity, reflecting on the fact of being able to buy human remains legally over the Internet, wondering who the owner of the tissues was. This idea of the anonymous is taken to the extreme in the reconstruction of the character of J. Doe, a collective presence, who is all of us and none of us at the same time.
Having compiled this intellectual and visual information, I make an allegory with the newest discoveries regarding genetic engineering, specifically with the “CRISPR” tool, which allows to “cut and paste” different genes’ segments. I reshape and combine the human body samples digitally, playing the part of the scientist. I later on use AI, and a generative algorithm to further modify the pieces, making a statement on the increasing use of AI in almost every aspect of life. The operations result in the construction of new imaginaries of the body, creating unthinkable and unexpected combinations that pose transcendental reflections. What is the fine line between fixing a physical issue in order to heal someone and enhancing a person’s physical abilities giving them a competitive advantage over others? If the genetic lottery could be rigged, would this ensure equality, or would it only standardize identities? Are we fully prepared, and do we have all the knowledge necessary to play Amateur Gods? At some points the monstrosity of the danger of playing with genetic engineering and self-manipulation looms large.
I make use of public domain scientific, philosophical, literary and even cinematographic references when creating narratives of the identity, texts that make us question the patterns of construction of the individual, society’s explanation of the self and the subject of the alteration and reinvention of the identity. Adding on a self-referential aspect to the work, I also analyzed my own blood through the microscope, and had my genome mapped.
I seek to trigger reflections on the audience, by drawing a parallelism between the possibilities of human design given by genetic engineering and the opportunity of consciously building ourselves a new SELF as an avatar inside the Metaverse, immersed in hyper-reality. I establish dialogues between computer programming and genetic identity construction, laying their smallest building units side by side: 0’s and 1’s and DNA´s base sequencing: ACGT.
Thirty years after the iconic Posthuman exhibition curated by Jeffrey Ditch, and considering the representation of bodies metamorphoses being the theme of the last Venice Biennale, I intertwine genetics and technology with conceptual thinking and philosophical reflections. With an almost surrealistic approach, I delve into certain issues that have been hovering in society’s consciousness for the past decades. Partnering with audio-visual producers, sound designers and genetics specialists, I explore genome maps, technological language such as binary code, screens and algorithms, identity documents and blockchain, virtuality and hyper-reality, “J. Doe, an abstract identity” brings together a series of the unknown, envisioning possible futures and awakening the spectator’s unease.
This series is composed of the following works:
“Posthumanism dialectics” seeks to build a dialogue between reality, fantasy and fiction, as I create an audiovisual choreography of the universes of hypertext, archive images and AI generated videos and audio, mixing each medium’s way of approaching identity construction. I bring together quotes on science fiction dystopian narratives and excerpts of prestigious literary and investigative works with public domain video media of today’s everyday life. This recompilation of clips addressing identity self-construction constitutes a live work, that continues to mutate and develop over time, being constantly updated due to the importance of technological advances and changes in cosmovision. These fast-paced videos dialog with an immersive animation of AI and digitally manipulated photographs of human remains I bought through the Internet and observed through an optical microscope. The human matter comes to life in a virtual audiovisual animation, combining organic movements and mutations with a tailor-made audio developed in collaboration with a sound engineer, incorporating my own heartbeat and brain wave sound. In this choreographic installation, I gather all the cornerstone concepts of the series: comments on genetics, technology, media and society. All of them related to identity, they function synchronically in order to awaken reflection in the viewers, by exploring analogies and threads that propose a new reading on known words. This piece’s process of development also engenders a dialogue through time, as it lays present images with quotes written in the past about future times side by side.
THAT'S THE QUESTION
Exploring the programming world and its close relationship to identity as a means of displaying information, I develop “That’s the question”, an installation piece composed by a dark screen with luminous green alternatively flashing numbers 0 and 1, posing the transcendental question on existence or inexistence. Can 0’s and 1’s, the presence of information or the absence of it, refer to identity as a means of existing? The rate of intermittency in which the 1 and the 0 are displayed on the screen will be determined by how often a certain type of post is uploaded to social media, therefore building an analogy between existence and social networks, a fundamental question in my work.
I MINT, THEREFORE I AM
I am developing a piece that sets a performance action in the Metaverse. In a series where I constantly reflect on the self-construction of the SELF, in times of virtuality and connections, and making use of the latest technologies, I set up a virtual action laden with meaning. I employ my self-created avatar, a virtual imaginary construction, to purchase my own virtual name, in the form of an NFT. This simple action adopts the name as the protagonist - the name, an aspect that is so characteristic of identity, so intrinsic to our own representation. The self-design of a virtual identity reaches its culmination in this action, which implies a monetised and self-appropriation of one’s own virtual - or not - identity. Is the fact of making a statement about identity in a form in which I have created my own self, staged in a virtual space that is clearly a reference point for media hyper-reality, a paradox? This subject is a key point in my research on self-construction.
ID
“ID” condenses the reflections of the series “John Doe, an abstract identity”, rethinking what is it that constructs us as beings, that ensures our uniqueness in the midst of a plurality of existences. Establishing bonds between the real world, both physical and psychic, and the virtual world, “ID” is constituted as a questioning of the self, making comments on genetics, technology, media and society.
In human beings, each cell normally contains twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, resulting in a total of forty-six. Each chromosome is the part of the cell that contains genetic information, that is, it is the sector that stores all the data that dictates our body and psyche. What will my eye colour be like? Will I be more prone to contracting skin cancer? Blurring the boundary between art and biology, I investigate how the sequencing of chemical elements such as adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine are the key to the development of my whole being.
Working with a saliva sample, I obtained information about the nucleotide bases that make up each of my genes. Through the tokenization of twenty-three NFTs, each containing the genetic information of every one of my twenty-three chromosomes, I explore the self-portrait in its most intimate dimension. In this way, I reflect on how a simple set of letters can condense all the information necessary to construct my identity, conceiving the self as pure information, which can therefore be constructed and modified with simple variations of data.
By making public the very intimate information that constructs my being, I explore the exhibitionist dimension of the present day, which allows us to expose ourselves to the flood of users without regime or control. Identity is commodified, assigned a commercial value, becoming the property of others. No one can purchase more than one NFT from this series, which results in a fragmentation of my identity, a groping that falls into the hands of strangers, with complete loss of control.
I construct an analogy with the virtual dimension of the self-construction of identity, paralleling the completely unique and personal genetic identity with blockchain technology, which guarantees uniqueness by sealing each unit with a specific and singular ID. A symbiosis is generated between the information that composes me as a being, both physically and virtually, completely crossed by technology, giving value to that which codifies me as a unique being, which legitimizes my identity.