A fleet of four (4) living Giant Madagascan cockroaches are equipped with miniature wireless videocameras and microphones on custom-built backpacks. The wearable-enabled insects explore the environment, transmitting live wireless video/audio/data into reception nodes: data projectors, a networked webcast, or monitors.
As the cockroaches roam through the venue, audio/video is wirelessly transmitted and displayed on four walls/displays - one display for each cockroach. During the event, Garnet Hertz (the designer/artist) will be present around the cockroaches as they roam, and will informally answer questions to people that want to hold the bugs, get closer, or chat.
This system strongly operates as a live "background" event: it works well in a reception/social context or as intervention. The estimated duration of this project - which is a factor of the battery life of the backpack systems - is about 1 hour. This system presentation is flexible and has minimal technical requirements, and can easily fit different contexts: on the ISEA 2004 ferry, in a club, or as part of a larger event.
This project is clearly a strong match for the three primary themes of ISEA 2004: networked, wearable and wireless experience. Wearables and other "smart" technologies have interesting applications outside of the context of humankind: the technology of miniaturization enables even the smallest creatures to be "wired" voyeurs and living gadget-pets.
Theoretically, this work is positioned within the context of technology in relationship to contemporary human culture. Posthumanism - which can be defined as a re-working of the limitations of the human form through radical uses of technological means - appears to be primarily concerned with issues of genetics and other efforts to extend and enhance human-oriented life. This work comments on posthumanism through the definition of non-human forms inheriting the title of "posthumans". Although transhumanist efforts will likely enhance human life, it is still most probable that non-human organisms - like the resilient cockroach, for example - will outlast human society.
The cockroach is the ideal posthuman creature: as Jaron Lanier stated in his "A Time Capsule that will survive One Thousand Years in Manhattan" (http://people.advanced.org/~jaron/roach.html):
"The familiar New York City cockroach predates the city's geography. It has survived ice ages, earthquakes, famines, and floods. It has watched the dinosaurs come and go. It has resisted determined efforts by mankind to remove it even from individual buildings. It would survive a nuclear attack. It will probably outlive all other contemporary fauna on Manhattan, including humans."
With the cockroach as the centerpiece and controller of the technology, the lines of distinction between pest, pet, friend and foe are blurred. Endowing cockroaches with advanced technology offers a humorous glimpse into the eyes of a hypothetical superhuman cockroach species: one that appropriates the technology of humans and combines it with the advanced survival techniques of the cockroach.
