On the occasion of the 43rd World Communications Day (23rd October 2009), Pope Benedict XVI has officially proclaimed the digital media as a new digital continent. This proclamation of the Catholic church on the topic of digital system development has been awaited for the last 30 years, since it became clear that the development of personal computers and similar devices are the pivotal technological innovation of the 21st century. Yet the definition was not clear until the social digital communications systems emerged.

If we look more carefully into this definition, we can see that the word continent is the most interesting part of it – and this continent can be defined as an interconnected mass of the Earth’s surfaces. A continent has two main characteristics: it has its own borders (water) and it is populated by living beings. In determining the borders of a digital continent, we can easily conclude that these borders are represented by the physical world. Much like the continents rising from the water surrounding them, digital media also exists within the physical reality. It is much more difficult to determine the inhabitants of this digital continent; we can conclude that it is populated by different digital codes, sequences linked together to form content comprehensible to human beings (images, films, text, tools and similar). But how can they be defined in the context of the living/non-living? Although all digital content is defined as a cluster of information not belonging to the biological world, we need to state that each of these digital entries has its form, colour, shape, meaning, and a certain energy structure.

The seriousness of this hypothesis is becoming evident in the development of the cyber proto-science during the past few years in which different types of digital bio-implants are being used more and more in order to facilitate/expand the possibilities of communication methods’. For example, some of them refer to implanting microchips for control or inhibition that allow identification and detection of health conditions of a biological subject, or expanding the basic sensory capabilities so that different types of radiation can be located, infrared soundwaves heard, much larger light spectrum seen etc.

So, who lives on the digital continent?
Can we determine the code systems as a certain form of life known to us?
What kind of new artistic forms can come out of this systematization?

In the early 90s, programmer John F. Dunn and biologist Mary Anne Clarc presented ArtWonk – one of the first public software for analysis and conversion of DNA and protein sequences. The software has been designed for the purpose of analyzing and converting data stored in the existing genetic banks into sound and image data. It was the result of their decade-long research during which they worked on translating complex bio-data repositories into numeric protocols that can be used in sonification processes. Simultaneously, Nobuo Munakata and Kenshi Hayashi also deal with analysis and mathematical translation of DNA systems, advocating as well for the sonification process.

In the artwork "12 Dead Birds", Gagić achieves the translation of the binary code of the file by changing the extension of any file in the computer to the .txt unicode entry. This entry is analysed in the Dunn/Clarc BioEditor that searches the given material with the aim of discovering simple genetic sequences (DNA and protein series) found in the digital entry. There are thousands of these sequences, even in the simplest digital organisms such as ordinary .jpeg photographs. It must be noted that each file is made of unique genetic material. In the next phase, the selected genetic material is being transformed into .mid files using already established patterns of converting genetic sequences into sheet music. In short, the file that is being analysed within the media in which it had been created is defined as a living being. From its genetic structure, a new basic structure of the musical record is derived.

(Based on a text written by Bojan Gagić)