"We are entering a new era, limited mostly by our imaginations."
Dr. Craig Venter (creator of the first synthetic genome)

In "Introduction to Interstellar Travel: Corner-College" the audience is invited to engage with scientific primacy in a pedagogical fantasy. Both audience and artist assume the role of synthetic beings of the future, built entirely from digital codes. The artist, Zoe McCloskey, takes the role of an anthropology professor and digital historian, teaching a class (the corner college audience) to travel interstellarly in the archaic form of a computer screensaver. The premise being, that in order to learn about ourselves as digital beings “now,” we travel (as interstellar screensavers) to worlds that are in a similar state of digital infancy as organic earth "was," circa the early 2000's.

While the amalgam of the lecture's contents maintain a fanciful illusion, all information relayed to the "class" is a direct appropriation of peer reviewed science studies featured in contemporary science anthologies, including "Neuroscience of Creativity" (MIT Press: 2013) and "From Groups to Individuals: Evolution and Emerging Individuality" (MIT Press: 2013) and/or is derived from current writings and lectures by notable living scientists and science scholars; specifically, geneticist Craig Venter, historian George Dyson, physicist Karen Barad, theorist Elizabeth Grosz, meme scholar Susan Blackmore, cognitive psychologist Eleanor E Rosch, and computer scientist Paul S Rosenblum.

Recurring themes in "Introduction to Interstellar Travel: Corner-College" highlight the potential roles for individual autonomy, genetic manipulation, and creative individuality in the biological and digital future.

In-character participation is encouraged!