it’s an essential topic that you are confronted with and it’s very clever to turn this into a project. in our job we have to integrate the big issues that manipulate, disturb or enrich our life directly into the production. considering the very personal as well as the political/social aspects makes art more explosive! when toywar stared in 1999 it was the biggest personal catastrophe for my partners and me. we were about to lose everything we worked for all those years. and we knew we would not restart under another name. only when we started to see the situation as another challenging digital art project we were back on track and had a chance to survive: emotionally, financially etc. it was a very good experience for me to see how much resistance, solidarity, technology and energy can accumulate in such moments. the key was not to go crazy and to keep on working with the problem – to hack it with passion, creativity and irony!

as you know i prefer the kind of artists who reflect their role in between / inside the problem rather than complaining from an innocent position. yes: you are in a difficult situation – not just medically … but also in the sense that your life is saved by profit focused corporate angels. you are part of the problem. this is fucking disturbing but also interesting. your dramatic involvement makes sure you are not getting lost in pseudo art (we certainly have too much lame, trendy, pseudo rebel bullshit in the field of interaction design today). your credibility and passion is very high. the topic matters: medical high tech, the penetration of the human body and the way we deal with its backlash, the ownership/profit problem and the search for alternative financing strategies in such ventures. no question: this is a strong starting point and i look forward to see where your research is taking you!

if i can do something for you let me know.

i wish you all the best for the next 20 battery periods!
zai

ps: i don’t have to tell you that you should “take it easy” and not overexcite your new device. also PLEASE don’t inject n20 and other experimental MID products into the box before you debuged the corporate code of ATLAS 2 V-268 (i don’t want to see the screen-saver again!!! ;-)