Molecular Clinic 1.0

Seiko Mikami, Molecular Clinic1, 1995
image/jpeg
320 × 320

Seiko Mikami, Molecular Clinic 1.0, 1995
image/jpeg
400 × 223

Seiko Mikami, Molecular Clinic 1.0, 1995
image/jpeg
320 × 320

image/jpeg
320 × 320

Molecular Clinic 1.0 is an art project realized through a collaboration between Seiko Mikami and ARTLAB. The "installation" is unique in that it only resides in the World Wide Web and has no material presence at all.

To participate in this project users will go to the Web site containing the "installation".During their initial visit users should download the MOLECULAR ENGINE VIEWER, which is a type of molecular laboratory for their computer. What they will see on the web site after this initial download is a virtual space containing a three dimensional computer generated Spider and Monolith object. The user will be able to navigate through and into this virtual space and can zoom into the spider all the way to the molecular level. When the user gets to this level they will be able to select and download an individual atom from the spider into their own computer. From there, using the MOLECULAR ENGINE VIEWER, the user can manipulate the atom in various ways, mutating and transforming it, even culturing, splitting and growing it, then the atom or atoms can be uploaded back into the spider, where it will affect the original, or "host" object.





What is "Molecular Clinic" ?
In this work Seiko Mikami intends to illustrate the emerging theory of molecular biology that every natural molecular structure in the world can be replicated artificially via the manipulation of the molecular chain. The project does not limit itself to being static information viewed by the onlooker, but takes on its meaning from the interaction of users worldwide who manipulate and change the project in unexpected and random ways.

The word "clinic" in this case also means inspection or exchange. In the process of exchanging a molecule between the home page and the users computer, the individual molecule will be inspected on the users side. Sometimes a molecule will be infected with a virus or the user may treat and even repair a molecule. When it is uploaded back to the "host" , this exchange will result in manipulations that will alter the structure of the work as a whole.