Evolution, hybridity and mutation: three generations of ...

University of Wollongong Thesis Collections

University of Wollongong Thesis Collection

University of Wollongong Year

Evolution, hybridity and mutation: three

generations of hybrid performance texts

from contemporary bioethical fables

Catherine FargherUniversity of Wollongong

Fargher, Catherine, Evolution, hybridity and mutation: three generations of hybrid perfor-mance texts from contemporary bioethical fables, DCA thesis, School of Journalism CreativeWriting, University of Wollongong, 2007. http://ro.uow.edu.au/thesis/841

This paper is posted at Research Online.

http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/841

VOLUME 1: CREATIVE WORKS: HYBRID SCRIPTS AND BIO-ETHICAL

FABLES.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Hybrid Scripts:

1. Radio Play Script: The Woman Who Knitted Herself a Child. 4

2. Puppetry/New Media Script (work in progress): 30

Dr Egg and the Man with No Ear.

3. Performance/Installation script: 81

BioHome: the Chromosome Knitting Project.

Original Bioethical Fables, (Templates For The Scripts):

4. The Man With No Ear 118

5. Corn Baby 129

6. The Boy With No Belly-Button 153

7. The Woman Who Knitted Herself A Child. 165

APPENDIX: Additional Audio-Visual Material To Accompany Creative Works

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables

HYBRID SCRIPTS


The Woman Who Knitted Herself a Child

A radio script

By Catherine Fargher

Broadcast date: December 19*, 2004

ABC Radio National 'Airplay'

Duration: 29 minutes.


VOICES

Scientist. Female in her 30's. Working with cloning technology.

Water Woman. The voice of the scientist swimming underwater.

Child. A girl around 7-8 years old. Playing and knitting a baby/doll

Young Woman. The voice of the scientist at 18.

Synthetic Computer Voice. A computer generated voice describing the technology of

the cloning process in detail.

Radio Voice-Over. A series of broadcast snippets from popular scientific journalism.

Character Voices. A number of cameo voices in the memory scenes, including:

Boyfriend/Snake, Doctor Jarvis, Mother, Rose (child's friend). Boys, Counsellor, Female

Doctor.

SOUND SPACES

Child's knitting/playing space. Sounds of rocking chair, bag of wool, click-clack of

needles, also playground sounds.

Laboratory space. Hum of lab machines: centrifuges and incubators, teat pipettes, petri

dishes and fluids.

Doctor's surgery circa 1970's. Sounds of surgery and surrounding garden suburb, pop

songs associated with the 70's, opera music associated with Doctor's surgery.

Underwater space. Sounds of sea landscape during snorkeling scenes: seaweed,

breathing, snorkeling sounds, bubbles, and fish movements.

Mitochondrial Water's Sounds. A musical/ sound space that features biological sounds

associated with reproductive cells and fluids in which cells divide. There are echoes of

voices, barely audible, perhaps the voices of cells, or spirits, of beings waiting to become.

This sound space is ambient and evocative both of body and memory.


ORIGINAL CAST AND PRODUCTION CREDITS.

Recorded at ABC Radio Audio Arts Studios, November 14-17^ 2004. First

Broadcast Dec 19'" 2004. Repeat Broadcast Nov 14 2005.

Writer: Catherine Fargher

Producer: Jane Ulman

Composer: Matthew Fargher

Sound Engineering: Russell Stapleton

Performers:

Scientist, Water Woman: Justine Clarke

Young Woman: Ursula Marley

Child, Rose: Alex Cook

Mother: Pam Drysdale

Doctor, Synthetic Computer voice. Radio Voice-Over, Boyfriend: Gerard Carroll

Female Doctor: Lea Redfem

Counsellor: Catherine Fargher


Child

Sounds of a child sitting on an old rocking chair and starting to rock. A squeal of glee.

Rustling sounds of a knitting bag with wool and patterns in bag.

Child (As if reading pattern)

Casting on a sleeve.

With a pair of number 10 needles, cast on 21 stitches.

2 ,4,6,8,10,12, 14, ....21!

More rustling in the bag. Click-clack of needles knitting together.

Child:

Pink wool, red wool, yellow wool. Nana's needles!

Work in rib... knit one, purl one.

I'm making an arm!

The moment

Sounds of water rushing, breathing as if through a snorkel. Breath as a head bursts

through the surface from swimming!snorkeling.

Water Woman

Like needles! I'm snorkeling deep in the water when I see them. The sun's

rays piercing the surface; catching strings of weed with their light on the

way down. I go deeper. Take a breath, push really hard with my legs, head

towards a dark space in the rock. I catch a glimpse of it... I don't know

what.. .pulsating towards me.. .a moving ball of light, thousands of tiny

silver shapes darting this way and that. Like tiny stitches. Like shivers

through my body. Moving across each other, making pattems. Hundreds

of tiny fishes moving in one body. Creatures coming into being. They split


around me and I'm surrounded. They're knitting me into their shape; I'm

inside the skein.

A brief hint of Mitochondrial Water's Sound- a musical! soundscape that features

biological sounds associated with cells and fluids in which cells divide.

DNA

Sounds of a centrifuge machine in a laboratory. Assorted clinking of petri dishes or

pipettes.

Scientist

Petri dishes. Centrifuges. DNA sequences. Don't ask me how many. I've

been working on animal vimses for 3 years. Finding vaccines for sheep.

Cloning vims proteins. You sequence the DNA so you can look for

common threads, some sort of pattem.

It's tiring ...the long hours...but exciting...!'m hooked. Like a fish

fascinated by the lure... even when it knows the spike's there.

When I first started, we did the DNA sequencing the old way. You'd

expose it to the radiation and there would be the four DNA

bases...Guanine, Cytosine, Thymine and Adenine showing up green and

blue in vertical columns. Little stitches across the gel. It was always a

thrill seeing what pattem you'd get each time. I kept some of them, they

were so beautiful.

Child

Sounds of a child sitting on an old rocking chair. Click clack of needles.

Child

(Excited) I'm never bored. Fern stitch, moss stitch, seed stitch, honeycomb

stitch. My grandma says there are new ones that aren't even invented yet!


One two buckle my.... I'm knitting a foot.

2, 4, 6, 8, 14 stitches, casting on now!

Delicatessen

Sounds of centrifuge. Hum of fridge.

Scientist

Like delicatessen fridges! That's the first thing I thought of when I saw the

embryo incubators. Big fridges. The kind you see in continental deli's.

Those pungent moldering European cheeses ... Roquefort, Ambrosia,

Stilton. But these incubators are sterile. No cheeses here.

They say if you're pregnant the smell of food is enough to make

you...cheeses especially, cheeses and garlic, even charcoal chicken.

Enough to make you ... I still can't bear to think... I still wonder if I had a

baby, if its skin would be milky like Neufchatel, or cmsty and wrinkled

like Camembert.

I'd like a baby.. .definitely. It pops into my head when I'm swimming in

the mornings, deep in the water, it comes to me.

The moment

Distant sounds of water rushing, breathing as if through a snorkel. Breath as a head

bursts through the surface from swimming!snorkeling. This is a memory, an echo.

Water Woman (whispered)

I catch a glimpse of it... I don't know what.. .pulsating towards me.. .a

moving ball of light.


Cloning 1

Sounds of centrifuge. Hum of fridge.

Scientist

I cloned my first embryo this year. I was attending a conference and had a

field trip to another biotech corporation, GenAg. The place was amazing.

In the middle of some huge industrial estate. Security gates. Guards. The

lot. I got clearance and entered the 'nuking' lab.

Lab sounds. Incubator humming.

Synthetic Computer Voice

Welcome to Gen Ag, Home of Agri cloning technology. Please take your

place in front of the micromanipulator. Through the microscopic viewer,

watch the cells on the petri dish. Let the slender arms guide you easily

towards the cell.

Sounds of needle insertion. Organic sounds. Whoosh of fluids.

The moment

Distant sounds of water rushing, breathing as if through a snorkel. Breath as a head

bursts through the surface from swimming!snorkeling. This is a memory, an echo.


Like tiny stitches. Like shivers through my body. Moving across each

other, making pattems.

Mitochondrial Water's Sound. A musical soundscape that features biological sounds

associated with reproductive cells and fluids in which cells divide. There are echoes of

voices, barely audible, perhaps the voices of cells, or perhaps spirit voices; of beings

waiting to become. This sound space is ambient and evocative both of body and memory.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 10

Abortion 1

Sounds of leafy suburb, birds singing, a car driving past. Music from the 70's, to suggest

a teenager i.e. David Essex's 'Hold Me Close' ... "with you love light shining, every

cloud's got a silver lining".

Young Woman

I'm on my way to the doctor for a pregnancy test, I'm seventeen years old

and I've just left school. I've invited my mother.

Car pulls up. Door opens.

My boyfriend is much older; he listens to Wagner, looks like Franz Liszt,

drinks Moet like water. He licks and tickles my ears with his honeyed

tongue and convinces me I want his baby.

Bohemian Rhapsody snippet plays.

Boyfriend (Snake voice)

My own 55weet kitty kat.. .what a i'rimply 55uperb baby we will make!

Young Woman

What convincing do I need? I am in the garden already. He leaves for

Tokyo and then the cramping starts.

Car door slams. Groans of cramping woman. A swelling of previous pop tune overlaid

with the natural sounds.

DNA knitting

Transforms to Mitochondrial Water's Sound - heart beat, breathing, an internal space,

perhaps sounds a child would have in the womb.


3 0009 03412369 0

Young Woman (interior)

I'm knitting my child. This work is so fine. Thin wiry needles. I'm casting

on strings of shimmering purl stitches for a spine. Slow work at first, a toe

here, and an ear there. Now shp the slipstitch over to make eyelets for

each socket. Fish Eyes.

Child

Click clack of needles.

Child (sing song)

My baby has fish eyes! (giggles)

Knit one, purl one; pass the slipstitch over!

Mitochondrial ditty

Mitochondrial Water's Sound- a musical soundscape that features biological sounds

associated with reproductive cells and fluids in which cells divide. This sound space is

ambient and evocative both of body and memory.

Mitochondrial ditty (chant/echo)

The thickening of blood in the womb.

The cramping

The splitting of cells

The msh of life

The rush of life.

The moment

Sounds of water rushing, breathing as if through a snorkel, Sound of head bursting to the

surface.

Water Woman

Hundreds of tiny fishes moving in one body. They split around me and

I'm surrounded. They're knitting me into their shape; I'm inside the skein.


Kihing babies


Child

I'm going to be a mummy! I'm making a baby (giggles)

Really I'm knitting a dolly!

My mummy just had a baby. He's called Sid. Rose's mum's had a baby

too. Her baby is called Tony.

(Gets remorseful, serious) My friend Rose and me, the other day in the

playground, we had sticks and they were our wands and we were, we

were...

Playground sounds. Crow sounds in the background.

Child

I'm pointing my stick at your dolly! My stick is a wand!

Rose

My stick is a wand too!

Child

I'm a witch and I can kill babies!

Rose

So can I!


Child

I killed your baby!

Rose

Your baby's dead too!

Children scream playfully and run away. Sounds of girls running. Crow sounds. Fades to

sounds of a child sitting on an old rocking chair. Click clack of needles.

Waiting

Sounds of laboratory.

Scientist

It's the waiting that I hate. Waiting for cells to divide. It didn't bother me

too much until I started the cloning and ...1 started to.. .things started to

flash into my mind. Things I'd forgotten. Things I didn't really want to

remember.. .I've started listening to the radio, just to keep my mind.. .to

try to keep the thoughts.. .for distraction.

Click of radio switch, low hum in background.

Brave New World

Sound of news radio; a montage of cloning stories. Click clack of needles behind. Lead in

announcers' voice:

Radio V/0

(Feb 13* 2004) Reproductive human cloning has once more taken a small

step towards becoming reality. South Korean scientists have created a

cloned human embryo and extracted embryonic stem cells. This

embryonic stage is also the exact stage that could be implanted into a

uterus to initiate a pregnancy.


Original


Child

My mummy says I'm an original and there's no one like me! But if I'm

knitting another one like me... wiU I be original then? If it's a knitted me,

not a real me.. .or if it was a real me, then I'd be...I'd be.. .which one

would be me?

Next I'm knitting the nose.

(Singing) 2 eyes, two ears and one nose, uh uh uh, uh uh uh.

Cows

Sounds of laboratory. Radio hum.

Scientist

Cows! Once I'd done my first cloned animal embryo, I transferred to this

lab in the same building. Developing extra genes for cows.

I'm making transgenic creatures.

Whirr of centrifuge.

People always think I'm crossing a cow with a monkey...making glow in

the dark calves. It's not as controversial as it sounds. We're just cloning

extra cow cells to 'turn on' genes in the milk.

Double cream.

I can't stop thinking about this milky little baby. She floats into my mind,

like she's playing games with me... a hidey game. Some days I think I see


a tiny waving hand next to the sequencing machine, I could swear I felt

some eyelashes on my cheek.

I need more sleep.

Cloning 2

Lab sounds. Incubator humming.


Hold the teat pipette, push into the surface of the egg. The oocyte is

pushed in until it distorts the cell shape. It's sticky on the outside. It resists

at first. Now watch the pipette penetrate the wall of the egg. Watch it burst

through.


Mitochondrial Water's Sound- a musical soundscape that features biological sounds

associated with reproductive cells and fluids in which cells divide.

Abortion 2

Sounds of a leafy suburb, birds singing, a car driving past. Music from the 70's.

Young Woman

When the doctor saw the throbbing blue on the test square, he looked at

me.

Doctor

Those hormones are literally jumping! It's good news I think!

Young Woman

He looked at my mother and me expectantly.


It was a nice surgery, very nice. There were overgrown hedges and a small

pond. When there was a lull in conversation he talked about the opera.

Doctor

She's working with Bonning I think...

Swell of opera music. Hint of pop tune.

Mother

The hedge looks very nice. Who does your clipping?

Thank you very much for your time. Doctor Jarvis, We will see you at the

opera soon. Shall we go now, Kitty Kat?

Soft garden sounds are rudely interrupted by the entry of a crow, cawing loudly. Fades

to: Mitochondrial Water's Sound. A musical soundscape that features biological sounds

associated with reproductive cells and fluids in which cells divide.



The msh of life

The rush of life.

The moment

Sounds of water rushing, breathing as if through a snorkel, the head breaking to the

surface. An echo of childhood boys' voices.

Boys' voices (memory/echo)

Puffer fish! Puffer fish!

Water woman

I still get a shock when I see them. Puffer fish. So tiny. Darting about the

place. Hummingbhds hovering on the sea floor. I was always terrified of


them! We went to the sea every Sunday when we were small. As soon as I

walked into the water, my brothers who were older used to call out...



Sound of boys giggling with glee, splashing. Little girl squealing, panicking, crying.

Water woman

They loved to terrify me. I imagined the whole sea teeming with these

things that were going to attack.

Mulberry Bush

Sound of child jumping and running around a room. Giggling.

Child

Round and round the mulberry bush, up and down the steeple, that's the

way the red wool goes. Pop goes the weasel!

I'm unraveling the ball of wool and winding it around everything.

(Chants) Wrap it! Wrap it!

(Whispering) Mummy can't see me. I'm going to wrap the room before

she gets home.

I'm making a cubby. She won't see me in here. I can be a big shark and

when she comes home I'm going to jump out and eat her up!

Snapping chewing noises.


Phobia

Sounds of laboratory. Radio hum.

Scientist

I've developed a weird phobia lately. I don't want to go home. Sometimes

I'm here till ten o'clock. I don't want to leave them.. .the cells.. .in case

they don't divide.. .in case something happens to them.

I saw my httle Neufchatel baby so many times today. I even started to

speak.. .to call out to her. I must be mad! But if I don't have her, there's

the other.. .the other things I remember. I feel things that.. .you don't want

to feel them.. .not at work, do you?

Echo of crow cawing, as if in memory.

Cloning 3

Hum of incubator.


The nucleus is sucked up into the pipette and removed. The cell material

of the animal to be cloned, the cloning DNA is then inserted. Place this

cloned cell in the incubator.


Mitochondrial Water's Sound. A musical soundscape that features biological sounds

associated with cells and fluids in which cells divide.


The thickening of blood in the womb...

Abortion 3

Sounds of leafy suburb, birds singing, a car driving past.


Young Woman

My mother took me to a park near the surgery. She held my arm firmly.

Mother

You can't have it Kitty, you do realize that, don't you?

A crow caws loudly and abruptly. Then swell of opera music.

Mother

The hedge looks very nice. Always.

Thank you very much for your time. Doctor Jarvis. We will see you at the

opera soon. Shall we go in, Kitty Kat?

Sounds of leafy suburb, birds singing, a car driving past.

We'll make the garden really nice this year. You can help me darling

Kitty.

Crow cawing loudly.

Skein

Transforms to Mitochondrial Water's Sound. A heart beat, breathing, an internal space,

perhaps sounds a child would have in the womb.

Young woman

How can I keep myself calm? Find my way through this thick sea fog? It

surrounds me; I'm cast adrift. Is my grandmother's knitting strong enough

to pull me in? Does the skein link me to dry land? To the sheep? To my

mother's house and my grandmother's house and her mother before her?


My grandmother's grandmother. Will I unravel altogether if I let go? What

else will save me from drifting away?

The moment

Sounds of water rushing, breathing as if through a snorkel. Woman comes up for air.

Water Woman

The weeds are curling around. DNA strands, spiraling staircases. Breaking

off and floating away. Rogue DNA looking for somewhere to fix itself.

Remember the weed creatures on Dr Who? I was terrified when the

woman walked into the sea and was taken by them. She walks into the sea

and keeps walking until her head doesn't show above the water anymore.

The call of the weed creatures was so strong. I always thought that they'd

call me.

I could never get to sleep.

Of course I didn't tell my parents, they would never have let me keep

watching.

Honeycomb hopscotch

Jumping sound of hopscotch, rhythm of feet as stitches are chanted.

Child

Knitting Honeycomb:

Right Hand needle from the front

Through the loop then slip the loop

Knit together with first stitch

I'm making ears!


Stem cell science

Lab space

Scientist

I don't know what's happening any more. Every time I insert the needle.

It's...

Echo of crow cawing, as if in memory.

I thought I believed... the human mind's made to inquire .. .pig lungs in

humans.. .glow in the dark mice... all that.. .but...

What about my Neufchatel? Can I make her?

Brave New World

Sound of news radio; a montage of cloning stories. Lead in announcers' voice.

Radio V/O

Michigan April 2004:

At the ripe old age of 4, the human equivalent of about 136, Yoda is the

oldest laboratory rat in the world. Yoda owes his longevity to genetic

modifications that have affected his pituitary and thyroid glands. On the

other hand Yoda is sexually active, as his girlfriend, 2-year-old lab rat

Princess Lea, can testify.

Cloning 4

Lab sounds. Incubator.


In the incubator the cells will divide after approximately four hours.

During meiosis, the replicating transgenic DNA will develop into a cell

cluster. Once the division has occurred 16 times, the cluster has become

the embryo.


Mitochondrial Water's Sound. A musical! soundscape that features biological sounds

associated with reproductive cells and fluids in which cells divide. There is an echo of

voices, barely audible, perhaps the voices of cells, or perhaps spirit voices, of beings




The msh of life.

Abortion 4

Sounds of hospital counsellor's office. Papers shuffling.

Young Woman

The operation is scheduled the moming after the counseling session.

Papers shuffling, pen scratching.

Counsellor

So, Kitty, is there anything you need to talk about? You've made your

decision?

Young Woman

I think I.. ,my mother thinks,, , rm pretty sure,,.

Opera music swells. Tosca.

Mother (memory/echo)

The hedge looks very nice. Always. Thank you very much for your time.

Doctor Jarvis. We will see you at the opera soon. Shall we go in, Kitty

Kat?

Sounds of hospital office. Papers shuffling.


Counsellor

You can call us back if you change your mind.

Sound of a rubber stamp at the end of dialogue line, transforms to sounds of hospital

operating theatre, instruments clicking and ticking. Opera music in the background.

Young Woman

The doctor is a woman. It makes me calmer.

Female Doctor

I'll put the gel on the stomach, I'm looking at the screen to make sure I put

the instmment in the right place.

Ultrasound machine sounds, slurping gel, machine blips.

You'll have a little needle, then we'll insert the curette into the utems.

Heart beat and sound on machine VERY LOUD. Body scream or equivalent. Transform

to Mitochondrial Water's Sounds. Water Woman and Young Woman's voice together.

Water Woman/Young Woman

I feel my whole body scream. When they stick the needle into me, my

belly contracts, I start to sweat, really shake.

The cawing of a crow as if flying overhead.

Female Doctor

Most women don't have any trouble with this.,,you'll be fine.

Heartbeat and scream muffled!fading!slower.


Sound of needle piercing, scissors tearing material, scraping sound blackboard. Breathe.

Sob.

Montage of sounds in a dream like sequence. This montage can be mixed!edited with

repeats of sounds!phrases to create a sense of menace!destruction!fear!floating and

dreamlike loss of control.

Jumping sound of hopscotch, rhythm of feet as stitches are chanted.

Child (whispering/hissing)

Through the loop then slip the loop

One two buckle my,,.

I'm knitting a foot!

Click clack of needles. Amplifying and reverberating. The sound grows more and more

menacing. Transforms to sounds of boys giggling with glee, splashing. Little girl

squealing, panicking, crying.



Swell of opera music. Echo of crow cawing, as if in memory.

Mother

The hedge looks very nice. Always.

We will see you at the opera soon.

Shall we go in, Kitty Kat?

Transforms to Mitochondrial Water's Sound.

Volume I: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 25


The cramping

The splitting of cells.

David Essex lyrics - 'Hold me Close'. Transforms to breathing beneath the sea surface.


Like tiny stitches. Like shivers through my body.

The cawing of a crow as if flying overhead.

Scientist

It's skin, milky like Neufchatel,

Wrinkled like Camembert.

The cawing of a crow as if flying overhead. Fades.

Mitochondrial Water's Sounds. A musical! soundscape that features biological sounds

associated with reproductive cells and fluids in which cells divide. There is an echo of

voices, barely audible, perhaps the voices of cells, or perhaps spirit voices, of beings


Pattem

Sounds of a child playing a clapping game. Hand claps and chants in rhythm.

Child

Knitting feet and knitting legs!

Don't forget the arms and head!

Stitch them up

And turn them round


Pick up baby from the ground! (clap)



Brave New World

Sound of news radio lead in announcer's voice:

Radio V/O

Today Dr Severino Antironi announced that he had successfully implanted

a cloned embryo into a woman and that she is eight weeks pregnant. Dr

Antironi made his announcement while speaking at a four-day conference

in the Arab Emirates...

Stitches

Scene cuts between scientist in the laboratory and the child who is finishing her knitting

project, stitching her baby!doll together.

Sounds of laboratory. Teat pipette.

Scientist

It's a gut thing. Sometimes when I'm working with the micromanipulator,

transferring the nuclei, I get that same feeling ...

Echo of crow cawing, as if in memory transforms to sound of threading needle.

Child

I've got two legs, two arms, a head, two ears, two eyes, one blue, one

black...



Scientist

Since I remembered...

Sound of threading needle.

Child

I've got some hair, ten toes, ten fingernails and a bottom, (giggles)


Scientist

I react when I see the same thing happen to a living egg cell. Like it's part

of me.

Sound of threading needle.

Child

It needs a bottom, (giggles) What else will I put the nappy on? (sing song)

Sounds of laboratory. Centrifuge.

Scientist

Where do I draw the line?

Sound of stitching doll together.

Child

I'm stitching her together.

Sounds of laboratory. Centrifuge.

I am the line.

Scientist


Sound of stitching doll together.

Child

All done! My baby is finished!

Sounds of laboratory. Centrifuge. There is an echo of voices, barely audible, perhaps the

voices of cells, or spirits, of beings waiting to become.

Scientist

Is that? .. .1 can hear... you can come closer.. .Neufchatel?

Sounds of teeming cellular life. Woosh of fluids.

END


Dr Egg And

The Man With No Ear

(A post-human fable for 21'* century families.)

Puppetry Script

(Rehearsal and animation)


Concept developed by Catherine Fargher and Jessica Wilson

From an original story by Catherine Fargher

Development showing: PACT Youth Theatre

August 19*\ 2005.

Duration: 1 hour, 15 minutes.


SCRIPT NOTES: Form and Narration

This play will use three main visual performance forms: puppetry (black theatre, bumaku and 2D

slot Puppets), projected stop motion animation and heightened gestural performance with actors.

Through the use of a post-modem theatrical framing, in the form of a stylized metallic proscenium

arch, a large playing space is exposed, allowing performers to move in an out of roles as characters,

puppeteers and players who create the storytelling space. The musician(s) also perform(s) on stage.

The three main characters, the Sad Man, his daughter Vivi and Dr Egg, will be realised both by three

physical actors and through puppet and projected animation. The story shifts between these forms,

changing scale and focus, creating a collage-like aesthetic. Using a sharp exchange and integration

between forms, the narrative unfolds rhythmically and visually with a cartoon collage style. Key

influences in the development of the visual aesthetics that operate in the work are the animation and

sculpture of William Kentridge\ visual artist Joseph Comell ,̂ animator Jan Svankmajer^ the

cartoons of Neil Gaiman"* and the figures in Alexander Calder's 'Circus'^.

A narrator will move in and out of this animated world, in keeping with the classic fable form. This

narrator will take the character of a snake. The snake symbol throughout history represents the

sacred realm of the creation of life. In Dr Egg she appears into the story because of the potency of

this situation presented. She emerges from her mythical realm, home of the 'larger forces of nature'.

She is conjured into the theatrical space by the performers in the initial prologue, and is at once both

ethereal and compelling. The performers are excited and scared by her power, and go about the

business of making her story come to life.

The Snake shows a gleeful interest in the fruits of human folly, and the things they might be

prepared to trade to get what they desire. She is excited about the unfolding pieces of this story and

the human mistakes that will inevitably lead to the discovery of the secret of life.

www.stmk.gv.at/.../99/kentridge/bild03.html 2

Joseph Comell: http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_bio_32.html

http://www.illumin.co.uk/svank/index.html

http://www.neilgaiman.com/ http://www.roland-collection.com/rolandcollection/section/25/621.htm


http://www.stmk.gv.at/.../99/kentridge/bild03.html

http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_bio_32.html

http://www.illumin.co.uk/svank/index.html

http://www.neilgaiman.com/

http://www.roland-collection.com/rolandcollection/section/25/621.htm

The Snake tells the story whilst assisting the physical transformation of the space. The Snake herself

is both a conjured, ethereal storyteller and an artist, creating some of the props or pulling them from

her costume, as she propels the narrative forward. She is also a moral commentator, encouraging the

audience to consider the risks inherent in engaging with life-changing science and to consider what

decisions they might make if they found themselves in our story.

Setting

Dr Egg unfolds in a world of six lab-like benches, each in the form of a cabinet with wheels, along

with one set of moveable curtains that can create a screen. There are three black theatre corridors.

Any number of contraptions emerge from the trapdoors in this ever-transforming set. The cabinet

doors and traps reveal and conceal action and operate as playboards for the puppeteers. This

intriguing set design is continually transforming and driving the transformation of action. The world

is alive and always unexpected. The art forms emerge from this world and are swallowed by it

again.

In front of the whole set there is a stylized metallic proscenium arch. This signifies the theatrical

space and at the same time it frames a post-modem reading of our fable: there are several layers to

be revealed. Down stage of the screen there are lots of props and 'stuff - a super 8 projector, a

bicycle, a train and tracks - which performers can take and use.

While the scale of our laboratory might be compact and transformational, the theatrical 'business'

which surrounds it is grand, energetic and compelling. As the performers move in an out of their

roles, the means of production are exposed for the audience's delight.

Characters

THE SAD MAN - A man who has lost his ear in an accident with a snappy bull terrier. He is fixated

on the replacement of his ear as his only means to happiness. He is afraid to take risks since the loss

of his wife and is protective of his daughter, Vivi.

VIVI - In contrast with her father, she is pragmatic, brave, and curious about life and science. Above

all, she wishes for her father's happiness.


THE MEMORY DOG - This is the man's tormenting shadow, reminding him of his accident.

THE DEAD WIFE AND MOTHER - Vivi's mother, seen only at the beginning of the play, when a

tragic accident takes her life at the moment she gives birth.

DR EGG - A cell biologist who has an interest in furthering the exploration of his science. He is

concerned with the world at a micro level, slightiy jaded, and motivated by an ambition to be

recognized.

SNAKE NARRATOR - A snake character, from the mystical realm, who narrates the story in the

form of opinionated comments. She finds human nature predictable, and entertains herself with their

mistakes. She is excited about great discoveries and particularly the discovery of how to create a

human life.

THE TANK CHILD - Vivi and Dr Egg's creation, a vulnerable cloned being, made from one of

Vivi's cells.

Synopsis

A sad man has lost his ear and his wife in an unfortunate accident with a snappy bull terrier. His wife

dead, he tries to live a happy life with his young daughter, but he cannot overcome his craving for a

new ear. One day he locates a mysterious scientist, Dr Egg, and is offered a previously unthinkable

possibility; Dr Egg can try to grow him a new ear. But first he needs a small piece of flesh from his

precious daughter. The Man refuses to harm her, but is increasingly tortured by his desire for the ear.

He tries, obsessively, to shelter her from any danger. Finally his curious daughter breaks out of this

protective shield and finds her way to Dr Egg's laboratory to give him the flesh herself. Before their

very eyes, the ear grows, but it does not stop there. A new life is made. And it looks a lot like her.

Should her creation live or die? Dr Egg, the Daughter and the Sad man are faced with a dilemma.

Themes

Dr Egg and the Man with No Ear explores the moral and ethical dilemmas society faces with the

continual scientific search for improvements in health and fertility. There are now technologies that

suggest a future of radical alterations to our pattems of reproduction, food production and health


management. We are promised transformation and mutation of nature and human society on a

massive scale. This reflects the accelerated rate of scientific and technological development we are

experiencing, as opposed to the slower pace of evolutionary change.

The story, taken from a series I have written, draws on the traditional stmcture of fables to create a

contemporary moral tale. Historically, fables have explored the place of humans and animals in

nature, and how life's difficulties may be met with cunning, ingenuity, invention, transformation,

mutation and sometimes magic or luck. Scientific corporations are making promises for remarkable

futures and present day miracles using these same means to meet life's difficulties.

The premise of the work revolves around the ethical issues in relation to this scientific research. It

acknowledges that there are complex issues and risks involved in cloning and stem cell biology, and

that there are no easy answers. We pose a hypothetical scenario to explore these risks, as well as the

notion of what makes something 'human' and who is responsible for these 'creations'. Through the

snake character, we also pose the larger question of what intrinsically human qualities we are

prepared to trade, to get things we desire in the short term. The work explores the influence of

kinship on decisions around stem cell and fertility science. It posits that we are all responsible for

our creations and the implications that their life may have both publicly and privately. We also seek

to avoid the image of the 'good and evil' scientist/science, instead encouraging the family audience

to consider their own decisions when faced with these dilemmas. What lines would they draw? And

what is lost when something is gained?

The scientific areas we are referencing here include stem cell biology, tissue culturing, cloning, and

xeno-transplantation. These are biotech sciences that are at once bold new frontiers, and also

fledgling sciences. We also address risk assessment of technological and scientific advances, with

risks to future generations and their environment, including the risk of retroviruses. We have

endeavored in places to reference real laboratories and cell biology practices, and have consulted

Tissue Culture and Art project's founding artist lonat Zurr, based at Symbiotic A, the Art and

Science Laboratory at the School of Anatomy and Human Biology, University of Westem Australia.

While some of the scenarios we present may seem 'fantastic', they do reflect real scientific

developments, including the concept of growing a 'bag of organs': a body without a central nervous

system, which may be harvested for body-parts throughout our lives. We also refer to recent


developments in GM agriculture, such as the square tomato from Japan and 'chimeras', or cross-

species animal modifications.

Production team and collaboration credits

Writer (script and original story), devisor, concept development - Catherine Fargher

Director, producer, concept development and devisor - Jessica Wilson

Design and spatial dramaturgy - Johnathon Oxlade

Animation - Jamie Clennett

Puppet Maker - Graeme Davis

Performers - Colin Sneesby, Annie Lee, Brian Lucas, Michelle Heaven

Dramaturges - Peta Murray, Sue Castrique, Jessica Wilson, Colin Sneesby,

Dramaturg (scientific) - lonatt Zurr

Dramaturg (academic, doctoral project) - Merlinda Bobis

Video and animation (development period only) - Sam James

Performer devisors (development period only) - Katia Mohno, Colin Sneesby, Annie Lee, Cathy

Coghill.

Thanks and acknowledgements

The writer would like to thank: Maude Davey and Heather Grace Jones, for proposing we ask these

bio-ethical questions in the first place, as part of the New Media Funded Motherload project. Oron

Catts, lonat Zurr and Gary Cass of SymbioticA, for encouraging more difficult questions. Jess

Wilson, for the original Terrapin Theatre master class, for her innovation, creativity and for

believing in this idea. Playworks Women Writers Workshop, The Sydney Opera House Tmst, and

the Theatre Board of the Australia Council for the Arts for funding creative development and

dramaturgical support. The Varuna Writers Centre and Playworks, for providing the fellowship and

residency where this story was first written.


PROLOGUE: THE REALM OF THE SNAKE

The curtains are closed to form a screen, which masks the space behind. A PROJECTION of the

Snake's 'Mythic Realm' appears on the curtains. Projected vines and bracken begin to creep onto the

screen, unfurling with thorns, robust flowers, insects and smah creatures. The Snake's realm is at

once luscious, verdant and ancient. From the stage in front of and behind the screen the performers

are illuminated in dark costumes. They deliver the lines of the prologue, sometimes in unison,

sometimes individually. During the prologue, a LINE DRAWN SNAKE makes it way across the

screen, winding through this environment.

SFX: MUSIC FOR SNAKE'S JOURNEY THROUGH ITS MYTHIC REALM. HERALDING HER

CALL TO EARTH.

PROLOGUE VOICES

Imagine the realm where the Great Snakes sleep. The Snakes of myth and legend.

Keepers of ancient secrets. The precious secrets of life and creation.

It is a realm that is not of your world. Where the rocks are grand and the foliage

luscious. A realm from before human time. Before this story came to mind.

These Snakes have lived many lives, been told in many tellings. The Jewelled Snake.

The Tempting Serpent. The Maker of Rivers. The Seraphim. The Fallen Angel.

These Snakes revel in stories of discovery. Stories where the secrets of life may be

revealed. Now this Snake stirs in her ancient realm. She feels the call to this time, the

time of our story. A human story - one of desire, loss and longing. She comes to

listen and taste the air with her tongue and to watch gleefully as the fruits of human

folly are revealed.

The SNAKE image continues to wind its way across the screen, and disappears where the curtains

join in the centre. The lights reveal the world behind the screen and the vine image fades.


Now, let the story begin.

ONCE UPON A TIME: THE BIRTH OF VIVI

The front curtains/panels are closed. Behind these we can see the dimly lit cabinets of the set,

suggesting both a laboratory and a domestic setting.

The curtains open of their own accord. Lights dim to darkness.

The play begins.

SFX: HEAVY BREATHING. GROANS OF A WOMAN IN LABOUR.

In the SRDS cabinet a small door opens with a gothic creak. A set of SNAKY HANDS emerges,

busily creating something out of wire.

SFX: CREAKING OF CABINET DOOR. SOUNDS TO ACCOMPANY THE SNAKES

TINKERING. MUTTERING. TWISTING WIRE.

The door closes. Creak. Slam.

In SMALL WIRE PUPPET WORLD a littie hatch opens in the top of the DS rostra and a small wire

model, fashioned by the SNAKE, emerges. It is a MAN on a bicycle with his PREGNANT WIFE

perched on the handlebars (inspired by Calder's circus figures).

We see the small bike set in motion. It squeaks it's way across the table.

SFX: WHEELS CREAK ALONG. MAN PUFFING AND WOMAN'S GROANS.

A spot lit image of the PERFORMER MAN'S head and shoulders appears, centre stage. In front of

him his PREGNANT WIFE sits sidesaddle, her hah blowing over her face and onto his. It's a high-

tension scenario as they race, puffing, to the hospital.


We see a PROJECTED ANIMATION of a DOG mnning across the front of the DSR cabinet, and

echoed on the drawn curtains.

SFX: DOG PANTING.

The image cuts rapidly between the DOG and the PERFORMERS.

A SMALL SCALE wire DOG pops up on DSL rostra and moves towards the small whe bike.

A collision is inevitable...

SFX: PUFFING MAN. GROANING WOMAN AND PANTING DOG. BUILDS IN TENSION

UNTIL...

In SMALL WIRE PUPPET WORLD, the wire bike and DOG collide. At the same time the two

DSL rostra smash together.

We see a spotiit image of PERFORMER MAN'S startled face.

SFX: CRY OF WIFE. YELP. THUD. BABY'S LUNG-FULL NEWBORN SQUAWK.

The lights come up behind the collided rostra. High up in the BLACK THEATRE WORLD we

see the PERFORMER MAN standing, distraught, above his PERFORMER WIFE'S legs

reaching straight up in the air. The newbom BABY is in the MAN's arms. The MAN, his

WIFE'S legs and the BABY are covered in blood.

MEET THE SNAKE

The PERFORMER SNAKE emerges from high upstage and surreptitiously moves between the

rostra, popping her head up in a number of places revealing only her snaky, sneaky eyes. During the

play she emerges, often reluctantly, from a series of 'perches' that are suggestive of resting places.

She may occasionally be eating a small animal or doing other snaky things when she appears.


Finally she alights on one of the DS rostra. She surveys the accident.

SNAKE

What a mess

A baby bom

A wife dead

Alot of blood...

SNAKE registers the audience watching.

Surprised to see me?

Don't be!

In matters of life and death

There's always one of us around...

Besides. Watching human foibles

Is one of my favorite pastimes!

A mistake a minute!

Dad's life was going smoothly

He was having fun!

He's sad now

Poor love

There's a bleeding wound

Where his heart used to be

Before...

She clambers to a high position and surveys the accident site again.


This.

She lets the audience in on a secret.

Dad's unaware of larger forces

All around

Every action

Has its consequence

In your world

And in mine...

Lets the audience in on another secret.

Don't be surprised

Strange things always happen in threes

The wife, the baby and now...

SFX-GRRRRR.

We see a PROJECTED IMAGE of a large and ominous DOG, as a white on black 2D cut-out, which

leaps and bounds. The PERFORMER MAN turns in horror. The SMALL WIRE DOG leaps from

the DSL rostra. The PERFORMER MAN recoils.

Black out.

Ouch.

SFX: SOUND OF RIPPING.

SNAKE clicks tongue, as if disapproving.


SNAKE

You may think humans

Are foolish creatures.

But dogs...

Don't get me started

If you know anything about bull terriers

You'll know they lock their jaws

And hang on for dear life

The PERFORMER MAN emerges behind the SNAKE with a DOG PUPPET attached to his ear.

He stumbles across the stage in a classic slapstick style with the DOG PUPPET locked onto his ear.

He struggles to remove it, but is dragged across the stage.

Unless you hit them

Fair and square between the eyes

With a stick

The PERFORMER MAN runs across stage again and disappears. This time he is holding a stick,

trying to beat off the DOG.

Or a strong jet of water from a hose.

PERFORMER MAN crosses one final time and exits. The SNAKE has become over excited with

her descriptions. She regains her composure.

Even then, sometimes they do not let go.

SFX: RIP. ARGGHH.


Like a jack in the box, a DOG PUPPET HEAD leaps out of a DS trap and sits there panting with

big ear in its mouth.

The SNAKE grimaces.

SNAKE

When they finally removed the dog

The ear, unfortunately, went with it

Clamped between its little jaws.

The SNAKE clicks her tongue, and retrieves the ear from the dog.

Think I'm cold blooded?

Hey, I'm a snake

It's these humans

Who take the cake!

Her tongue flickers in the air, responding to the smeh of blood. She subsides below the rostra.

THE SAD MAN'S FATE

SFX: WIND GUSTS IN A BLEAK CITY.

We cut to an image of the PUPPET MAN on his puppet bike in the upstage BLACK THEATRE

space. He peddles sadly, his ear bandaged with white cotton wool and gauze. His bike still has a

bent wheel from the accident. An empty plastic bag is blowing along beside him.

SFX: MELANCHOLY RHYTHMIC MUSIC PLAYS, 'SAD MAN'S CYCLE THEME', INTERCUT

WITH SHIFTING STATIC ON A RADIO.

On the drawn curtains in front of him, we see stop motion ANIMATED PROJECTION of images

of a city-scape, moving SL to SR. The images are constructed with layers of collage in varying


degrees of contrast. The colour is gradated from darker below so we see tight on the man on bike

puppet behind. The projection moves as he moves, looping and shifting on a ceaseless joumey.

Small events happen within the projected animation: mbbish blows, cats and derelict figures

move through the streets, the sun sets, a streetlight goes on and in a window we see another man,

woman and child together. We see a number of advertising billboards; one for a music player,

featuring a huge ear, one featuring ears as beautiful objects.

SFX: MELANCHOLY RHYTHMIC MUSIC CONTINUES. INTERCUT WITH SHIFTING STATIC

ON A RADIO.

The PUPPET MAN observes the scenes and becomes gloomy, responding to the memories and

desires evoked. Will he ever be able to escape these reminders of his loss? We see the desolate

joumey of his life stretching before him.

The SNAKE re-emerges stealthily from behind the rostra. She surveys the scene with slight

mockery then addresses the audience superciliously.

SNAKE

A bleeding wound

Where his heart used to be

And a gaping hole

Where his ear used to be

P,,, lease.

(yawn)

Suddenly she remembers the BABY, How could we forget the baby! Isn't she the

one the story is about, the reason the Snake was called in the first place? Ah, there

she is, in the upstage BLACK LIGHT area, SNAKE chucks the BABY under the

chin, coos and clucks. This is a very important baby indeed.


SNAKE

Here she is

The little poppet

Vivi, let's call her

She's innocent, pure

But as fate would have it

Bom in dangerous

Circumstances.

Brave from the start

Lashings of curiosity

All the ingredients

To make a great discovery...

Her story could be interesting

I can feel it on the tip of my tongue

Vivi the curious cat and her sad, sad Dad

On their path to the future.

Where will it lead?

She surveys audience for glimmers of interest. Then opens the curtains.

Wait patiently and see...

With that the SNAKE tickles baby VIVI under the chin and pulls a curtain across the DSR central

table. She tosses VIVI almost carelessly up into the air and sets her on her joumey. VIVI disappears

into the black.

We experience a suspended moment as the SNAKE turns on a real tap. An ANIMATED

PROJECTION of water filling up as if it is in a tank.


^ : WATER FILUNG.

The SNAKE exits.

SPLASHDOWN - VIVI IN THE POOL

We see an ANIMATED PROJECTION sequence of VIVI falling, projected onto the curtains. As

she falls, she grows into a child, ageing to around 11 years old. We see a projection of her splash

into the water and the dark water that surrounds her.

SFX: A BODY SPLASHES INTO WATER.

SFX: DREAMY SOUNDS, MELODIES AND RHYTHMS OF UNDERWATER WORLD.

Up stage of the PROJECTION, we see PUPPET VIVI in BLACK THEATRE. She is full of

energy, swimming under the water, coming up to tread water on the pool surface, then diving to

it's floor, free and curious again. Bubbles, tiny fish, creatures, cells and amoebas begin to emerge

in the water in PROJECTED ANIMATION. She explores, playing with some of the creatures

and organisms in the animation. Some tiny fish dart this way and that. She chases them, up,

down; they're so quick, always outsmarting her. One tiny fish appears in BLACK THEATRE.

Oops! She has caught it! Suddenly the animated school of tiny fish circle her, she is contained,

knitted into their shape. She is part of life itself.

Now she dives down, touches the bottom then swims frog like towards the surface, holding the

BLACK THEATRE fish, graceful and choreographed.

She disappears out of the light. We see the ANIMATED IMAGE of the water on the front curtain

drain out.

SFX: GURGLE OF WATER DRAINING OUT.

The curtain is drawn back and we see VIVI waiting on the rostra for her Dad. She has the littie

fish in a jar with string around the top.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^-^

While she waits she plays the fish in the jar, muroring it. Her play with this small creature will

echo her later play with TANK-CHILD.

PUPPET MAN arrives to meet her. They hug. He is so pleased to see her. His daughter brings

him joy - the only respite in his bleak and windy days. VIVI gazes lovingly up at the SAD MAN.

He looks lovingly down. He sees VIVI is cold and wraps a towel around her shoulders. It is clear

he cares for her but there is a hint of his need to protect and shelter her. VIVI shows him her fish.

He wants her to leave it behind, despite her protests.

THE MEMORY DOG

SFX: GRRR. CRY OF WIFE. YELP. THUD.

Suddenly the PUPPET JACK IN THE BOX DOG with the Man's ear in its mouth jumps out of its

trap with a growl.

The PUPPET MAN freezes. He turns his head to see the DOG,

We see a PROJECTED IMAGE of a large and ominous DOG, as a white on black animated paper

cut-out, which leaps and bounds.

He sinks slowly to the ground on the DS table in black theatre. Will this haunting memory ever

leave?

We see PUPPET VIVI as she comforts him. She then places PUPPET MAN on puppet bicycle

handlebars. This time VIVI rides the bike; she's the adult now. They cycle through the bleak

Animated City, in PROJECTION on either side of them as they ride towards the audience. Hints of

the MEMORY DOG.

SFX: MELANCHOLY RHYTHMIC MUSIC PLAYS. 'SAD MAN'S CYCLE THEME'.

The SNAKE surveys the scene from above.


SNAKE

Even I didn't see that coming!

Now Vivi rides the bike

What a sight!

Dinking dad into the night...

To the audience:

Does Dad walk the dog?

Or does the dog chase him?

Front PROJECTION of the city continues as they ride.

THE PRESENT #1

One of the back rostra is rolled to front centre stage, becoming a pier platform. The PERFORMER

MAN and PERFORMER VIVI are sitting at the front of the pier. Behind them we see an

/ANIMATED PROJECTION of a lighthouse and a sky with clouds. It is afternoon. The cloud moves

gentiy in the sky. We hear seagulls and see the occasional seagull fly by in line drawn or cut out

animation.

SFX: SEAGULLS AT THE BEACH.

SFX: BITTER SWEET MUSIC FOR A CONTEMPLATIVE MOOD.

The MAN and VIVI look out towards the horizon, taking a breath simultaneously, Aah, it's good to

be together in their favourite spot.

VIVI looks at her father adoringly. The MAN looks sad. VIVI looks at him adoringly. The MAN

still looks sad. A sweet and melancholy clown moment.


VIVI looks secretive and excited. She has made presents for her father's birthday to cheer him up.

She pulls out a small cake with a candle.

VIVI passes the cup-cake, with it's lit candle, so pleased with herself. The MAN smiles for a

moment, distracted from his grief. He blows out the candle and slowly eats a mouthful, staring out

into the distance.

SFX: WISTFUL ACCORDION VERSION OF ' FOR HE'S A JOLLY GOOD FELLOW'.

But wait, there's more; she takes another present from her bag, with a card. She's trying so hard to

cheer him up. She offers him the card first.

This is a card with a picture, a portrait by Van Gogh, 'Self Portrait With Bandaged Ear'. VIVI

indicates the message she has written inside. Isn't she clever?

The MAN reads the inside of the card and smiles. We see the image on the card, but the MAN does

not. Finally the MAN looks at the picture. A beat. He pretends to be pleased, but is crestfallen by

this vision of himself.

VIVI offers the present in a box. She is practically busting with pleasure, she's saved her best

offering for last. The MAN lifts the lid to find a toupee with a comb over, to cover his ear. He tries it

on quickly. VIVI adjusts it. It fits! Even the MAN looks pleased. VIVI is quietiy triumphant. Beat.

As the scene progresses, day turns to night and a mist begins to appear in the animated projection.

The sky darkens and the lighthouse light comes on and spins around. A wind picks up, the clouds

move faster.


SFX: WIND BLOWING.

VIVI is cold. There is a wind coming up. She shivers. The MAN offers her his scarf. He wraps it

around her neck. Protective again.

In a rather comic moment, the wind blows, the animated clouds move faster for a moment and the

scarf and the toupee comb-over blow horizontal. The MAN and VIVI sit facing forward with

poignant expressions, their oblique accessories flying out beside them.

Fade to black.

The pier rostra disappear to back. Upstage cabinets disappear and leave front two cabinets. The

SNAKE emerges holding a SMALL SCALE MODEL of MAN and VIVI'S house. She is intrigued

with this tiny object, balancing it dehcately.

SNAKE

It's the tiny things in life

That bring all the pleasure.

To lose a precious orifice

Is too horrible to measure!

Lets the audience in on a secret.

You might think you're in control.

But things happen

Littie things

Hurtling you into futures

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^-^

You never dreamed of.

She switches on a light in the model house, and at the same time, the light goes on in PUPPET T.V.

SPACE on DS rostra.

A littie light on the subject perhaps?

THE DREAM

The PUPPET MAN is watching his television late into the night. The interior of his house is a

classic design echoing a fifties style. His toupee has slipped to one side. He watches TV.

SFX: TV STATIC. CUT WITH ASSORTED NEWS HEADLINES BOMBINGS. CELL RESEARCH

LIMBS LOST IN LAND MINES.

SNAKE

Desperation makes fertile ground

For sickly weeds to grow.

Dad escapes his fears by

Watching late night shows...

The PUPPET MAN drifts.. ..nods.. .falls asleep and starts to dream...

We see the PERFORMER MAN standing on a small revolve centre stage, spinning in isolation

behind the central screens. Super 8 like static and scratches flicker on this screen DS of him. Puppet

objects emerge and move around him, in BLACK THEATRE on the upstage tables, depicting his

dreams. An ear flies by SL to SR. h flaps a littie and floats a littie.

SFX: SOFT WINGS FLAPPING.


The MAN stops spinning and watches it pass, intrigued. Suddenly a whole swarm of moth ears pass

in the same direction. These ones move faster and gentiy swarm around him, echoing VIVI's

encounter with the fish in an earlier scene. He follows them, dismayed.

SFK: STRONGER WINGS FLAPPING.

Suddenly an exposed bulb drops down above his head in the PROJECTION and tums on.

SFX: CLICK OF A SWITCH BUZZING OF A LIGHT BULB.

He is washed in a pool of light. The ear-moths retum again from the SR side swarming past him

and straight up to the bulb. He watches them as they flit around the light.

SFX: BUZZING OF A LIGHT BULB. SOFT WINGS FLAPPING.HISS AS ONE HITS THE

LIGHT.

In the PERFORMANCE SPACE, a light switch string drops down beside him. He pulls it and

the projected light flicks off. The moth-ears all drop down.

SFX: CLICK OF A SWITCH. BUZZING STOPS.

In the PERFORMANCE SPACE, lights come up on an ear, which is on one of the rostras. The

MAN watches it. It sprouts legs and walks off to the other side of the rostra. A tiny trapdoor

opens and the ear jumps in. The door shuts. The MAN goes to open it to look inside and a large

swarm of moth ears fly out and attack him in black theatre. He recoils but then tries to keep hold

of one or two. (This image echoes Vivi in fish scene.)

SFX: SWARM WINGS FLAPPING.MAN'S PANICKED BREATHING.

Now his attention shifts to a LINE DRAWN tree that begins to grow in front of him in

ANIMATED PROJECTION. In a scratchy way it quickly sprouts more and more branches


around him. On the branches fmit pop out of pods and shake a little before hanging there

glowing. They look like clear red berries but are also reminiscent of blood filled cells. Is this the

tree of Life? The garden of Eden? Do we see a glimmer of the snake, offering the fmits of the

Sad Man's desire?

Whilst all of the fmits have now settled, one continues to swing. It rings with a bell sound.

SFX: BELL SOUND.

The MAN goes to touch it and it springs open, with a crack, to form a box with a large ear inside

it, Comell style. The MAN touches another and another which both do the same. Suddenly he

sets off a chain reaction and the whole tree's fmit have burst into box forms each with an ear

inside,

SFX: DOORS OPENING. CREAKING. SWINGING.

Do ears grow on trees? It seems so. The MAN is excited that it might be so easy to pick an ear.

He reaches to one, but it disintegrates before his hand can get there. Now there is just a pile of

dust in the bottom of the box. He reaches for another and it bursts into flames and ends up just a

melted bit of glug on the bottom of the box,

SFX: FLAME BURST

Suddenly all of the boxes rudely slam shut with little wooden doors.

SFX: DOORS SLAMMING.

To add insult to injury it starts to pour with rain in the ANIMATED PROJECTION images.

SFXxSTEADY RAIN FALLING.


A water line begins to rise at the MAN'S feet in the projection. In the projection, the boxes all

fall off the tree, hit the water and float off.

SFX: OBJECTS FALLING IN WATER.

When the last box hits the water, the MAN jumps onto it. He stands on a box behind the

projected box. The animated image of water drains away, leaving him standing there.

The box begins to jiggle with the sound of a horse.

SFX: HOOVES CANTERING.

The MAN jumps off in surprise. The MAN listens to the box, intrigued. He hears a range of

sounds coming form the box.

SFX: SOUNDS OF FOREIGN CITIES. INDIAN MUSIC. INNER CITY CAR HORNS. NEW

YORK JAZZ MUSIC. FILMNOIR GUN SHOTS AND GANGSTA CRIES.

The man is so intrigued, he paces around the box. Could it contain what he desires? Or will

Pandora's horrors be released?

He opens the box lid and a LIGHTING/PROJECTION state change indicates he has unleashed a

dark and sinister world of backstreets. A PROJECTED image of himself as a

SALESMAN/FUNERAL DIRECTOR slides out and up to full-scale size in the ANIMATED

PROJECTION in front of him, around him a dark laneway, with gothic resonances of Jack the

Ripper's London layered with contemporary New York funeral parlour morgues. The

SALESMAN reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a throbbing heart. As if prompted by an

outside force, the PERFORMER MAN reaches into his pocket and pulls out a $100 bill to hand

to the SALESMAN. As he offers it, it disappears out of his hand and he pulls out another, then

another. They are all snatched out of his hand. The SALESMAN opens his jacket to reveal a

pile of body parts including an ear or two attached to the inside of his jacket like watches for sale.

The PERFORMER MAN recoils.


He starts to spin again on the revolve.

SFX: SHRIEKS OF MOCKING LAUGHTER.

The PERFORMER MAN is still standing centre, his toupee blowing in a gust of wind to reveal the

gaping emptiness on the earless side of his face. He stands there, a stark portrait of desperation. His

hand goes to cover the empty space. His mouth opens in a silent scream.

Black out on the MAN.

SFX: MOCKING LAUGHTER.

SFX: TV STATIC. CUT WITH ASSORTED NEWS HEADLINES. ANNOUNCEMENT OF STEM

CELL BREAKTHROUGH.

At same moment PUPPET MAN wakes from the dream. The SNAKE emerges reluctantiy, yawning,

bored. During the speech she adjusts her own clothing, she is not beyond vanity herself.

SNAKE

I always say toupees

Are not for the fainthearted...

Once again Dad's caught in a trap.

He's been here time and time again.

Vanity, it's called.

Straight from the book

It's 'me' 'me' 'me'


He's obsessed with his looks!

To the audience:

What is the price

Of human folly?

FINDING DR EGG

We see PUPPET VIVI as she brings PUPPET MAN a sandwich in front of the T.V.

SFX: TV STATIC. ASSORTED NEWS HEADUNES DISTANT ANNOUNCEMENT OF STEM CELL

BREAKTHROUGH (ECHO OF NEWS HEADLINES).

They don't quite hear the headline. VIVI tums off the TV. They stand.

Blackout.

The PERFORMER MAN and PERFORMER VIVI are standing centre stage. Now they are out in

the world, both holding a brown paper lunch bag. The MAN'S sandwich bag is marked 'Tomato',

VIVI'S sandwich is marked 'Egg'. Where can they turn to look for a solution?

A newspaper blows onto their face (clown moment), with a bold headline. VIVI reads the newspaper

headline, which heralds a breakthrough in stem cell discovery.

HEADLINE: "BIOTECHNOLOGY BREAKTHROUGH: DREAM NEW BODY PARTS."

VIVI shows the MAN the newspaper headline and he grabs it, reading it voraciously. The MAN

looks around, excited / furtive. Could this be the answer to his dreams?

As the spatial worid begins to transform around them. The SNAKE emerges and narrates.


SNAKE

Look at our dear friends

Clutching at hope...

An endearing human quality...

Even I'm intrigued..,

A light's gone on in the dark

They've found something new

Something to make

Miracles come tme!

They saw it on the television

Heard it on the radio

They've chanced on the idea

They can make an ear!

In ANIMATED PROJECTION a train window forms around their heads. The performers turn as

if sitting on a train.

SFX: CLICKETY-CLACK OF AN ELECTRIC TRAIN.

Images of the Animation City are reflected in the window as the train moves along. We also see

the occasional train hght and stmcture or tunnel. This image morphs into a smaller image of

three or so carriages of a train. VIVI and the MAN stand there as the train goes off screen. Now

a SMALL SCALE toy train version of the train crosses in an arc around the DS edge of the stage.

They stand there waiting wondering where they have arrived.

Suddenly, as if a street lamp is tuming on, the PROJECTED IMAGE of an automatic glass door

appears in front of them. We see in reverse the words 'Dr Egg'.

The performers walk in and the projection and screens disappear to the side of the stage.


m EGGS LABORATORY - EXPERIMENT #1

As the MAN and VIVI walk through the opening screens, the WORLD OF THE CABINETS comes

alive.

SFX: CENTRIFUGE! DRIPS! WHIRRS! ABSTRACT LAB SOUNDS.

The laboratory uses the whole space now. The tables shift together to create one large central table.

An array of laboratory objects and scientific equipment emerges onto the tabletop. Depending on the

lighting that is employed, this will appear simultaneously like a SMALL-SCALE city with small

stobie poles and wiring, or lab equipment to be used for experiments. The MAN and VIVI'S

SMALL SCALE house appears within this tabletop world.

The MAN and VIVI observe the lab. Bubbling and smoking begins from a number of vials - ah, the

miracles of science. On the benches there are also strange creations in vials, some plant, some

animal. There are also mechanical and experimental animal objects. Two PROJECTED IMAGES

are presented in cropped sections onto two large bottles, including random bubbles.

VIVI is in awe of the wondrous possibilities she is encountering, how can she contain her curiosity?

She approaches the chemical/liquid experiment and accidentally sets off a reaction.

DR EGG comes out from under the table, annoyed by VIVI'S disruption. He deliberately moves her

out of the way, placing her far from the experiment.

He moves about the lab with great precision on a rolling stool. He moves objects about on the table

with an obsessive eye for detail, like a master chef.

VIVI shows DR EGG that her father has no ear.

Even DR EGG gets a shock to see the MAN'S earless face. How awful! How interesting!

DR EGG and the MAN become entangled in a man-to-man conversation. Abandoned, VIVI

occupies herself with the lab experiments.


The SNAKE emerges from an unlikely point in the lab, perhaps near a flame.

SNAKE

Surprised to see me here?

Don't be!

In matters of discovery

There's always one of us around!

The SNAKE observes the conversation between DR EGG and the MAN. (During this narration, the

snake can change the subject of the Prime Ministers bungle, marked '*', to be 'topical')

When men get to a certain age

They like to chat about 'important' matters

Health conditions, the news

The Prime Minister's latest

Immigration* bungle.

But wait, first things fhst

Dad needs a new ear

He asks the doctor

Could he possibly?

Is there any way?

Dr Egg has a look

Oooh, Very nasty indeed..,

Mmmm, he's grown a lot of things

Crossed a tomato with a fish

He thinks he could possibly...

Probably,..

Volume ]: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 58

Meanwhile VIVI is not sure if she can find much evidence for his claim that he can create body

parts. Could he be a charlatan? She slams her hands down on the bench.

Everyone, including the SNAKE is startled.

SNAKE

How wonderful!

Our ever-skeptical youth

Wants to see some proof!

DR EGG looks annoyed by this distraction, and approaches VIVI as if she is a tmly troublesome

child. He'll show her a thing or two. In a patronizing manner, he commences an experiment.

First he takes a seed from the MAN'S tomato sandwich.

Then he reaches into a refrigerator through a door in the lab tables. Dry ice pours out as he pulls out

a fish and a chicken. He extracts cells from each of them and places them in a test tube. He waits.

With the tomato seed in a big tank, he adds the hormone drops to the seed. Slowly a tomato plant

begins to grow, in BLACK THEATRE. Eventually it sprouts tomatoes. At first they seem normal

but then they begin to grow fins and feathers.

As the experiment takes place, the SNAKE appears in a smaU door in the front cabinet. She sings in

a Cabaret style.

SNAKE

We can add a little fish

To a tomato seed

And make a plant that grows

For all the world to feed

If you experiment enough

You are sure to succeed

Let them seed!

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables -^^

Let them breed!

Let them seed!

A scientific march of progress

Is just about to begin

A miraculous future

Will present itself

A way to shed your own skin.

Make an ear.

Make a jaw

Make an eye.

Break a law

No time like the present

Come on, let's tempt fate!

It's a global goldmine

You don't want to be late

Let them seed!

Let them breed!

Let them seed!

VIVI and the MAN'S enthusiasm is growing.

The MAN has a twinge of optimism. He plucks a tomato from the bush and places it to the side of

his head. If an ear is anything like a tomato, this should be easy! He wants to go ahead.

SNAKE

The Man's impressed.

The Doctor seems to know his stuff

Even Vivi's pleased enough.

The SNAKE looks gleeful.


They still haven't asked about the cost of course...

DR EGG excitedly gets his scalpel from the bench. He grabs VIVI'S head and pushes her hak aside.

He's thrilled to get the go ahead for the experiment. As he commences he continues his animated

communication with MAN.

THE PRECIOUS THING

DR EGG continues his animated communication with MAN as he tries to move VIVI to his

clamping instmment in preparation for the extraction of flesh from her ear.

SNAKE

The cost, he forgot!

Most important to mention

Your own flesh and blood

Is required for this invention.

A child's cell perhaps

Your own genetic stock

Will you give one of those?

A lamb from the flock?

The doctor makes it clear

There's a price for this ear

The most precious thing you have

Is the only thing he'll take!

He is holding a scalpel aloft. The MAN suddenly realises what this would mean. DR EGG wants a

cell from his own precious daughter!


The MAN grabs VIVI, he's not prepared for this at all. DR EGG looks surprised. VIVI is reluctant

to leave. She has been enjoying the laboratory and was not afraid at all about giving a small piece of

flesh to make her father happy. She stealthily takes the scalpel on the way out.

The SNAKE pulls the curtains across as she narrates.

SNAKE

I love a bit of moral outrage!

Pity we can't do replays!

To the audience:

What would you be prepared to trade

For something you desire?

Would you sell grandma?

Part with a family dog

An ipod? Never!

Without his ear

Dad's miserable it's tme

But to steal anything from Vivi

He knows he can't do.

Still, Dad's outrage

May soon blow over

He might be back!

Who knows what he'll wager

To grow the precious ear.

Of course I'm thrilled!

It's what I came here for!

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables " ^

The SNAKE is gleeful as she realises that the trade may still take place soon.

She picks up the SMALL SCALE house in the lab landscape.

To the audience:

What is the sound

Of one cell dividing?

She puts on the light in the small-scale house, as the light goes on in PUPPET WORLD.

THE PRESENT #2

Back at home in the T.V room, the hght tums on. Puppet MAN sits alone, more despondent than

ever. Puppet VIVI hates to see him sad. She holds a present behind her back. She sits down beside

him and lays her head on his lap.

He looks down at her ear. Longingly. He can't take his eyes off it!

Enthusiastically, she presents him with a new present, in an attempt to help his sorrow.

Above his head, in BLACK THEATRE, the MAN sees the present open and a scalpel is revealed,

floating menacingly.

He knows she is willing to make a sacrifice for him. He pushes the present away. She offers it again.

This time she is not so much enthusiastic, as insistent. He pushes it away again. But the temptation is

great. This calls for self-control.

The PUPPET MAN leaps up and takes off his scarf, and starts to wrap it around PUPPET VIVI'S

neck. PERFORMER VIVI appears through a trap in the front bench and PERFORMER MAN pops

up in trap behind. The MAN is tom between control and protection as he systematically cocoons

VIVI in the scarf. Despite this horrifying act, the MAN kisses her on the cheek and goes back to his

chair.


PUPPET MAN sits down again to watch T.V. He falls asleep.

PERFORMER VIVI stmggles in her scarf coccoon, trapped. She is indignant, what's Dad playing

at? She remembers the scalpel she stole. She stmggles to cut her way out of the coccoon with the

scalpel. Finally she escapes and disappears through the trap.

PUPPET VIVI sneaks past PUPPET MAN. As she leaves, she tums out the hght. We see the light

go out in the SMALL SCALE HOUSE as a small wire scooter leaves. SNAKE picks up SMALL

WIRE SCOOTER and adjusts SMALL WIRE VIVI as she narrates.

SNAKE

Have you ever noticed

The game that is forbidden

Is the very one

You want to play?

A simple no

Has never stopped

A curious cat before

Especially one with nine lives

Who's already used up four!

VIVI places the SMALL WIRE SCOOTER back on its track, and watches it move along the bench

with bits of scarf flying off behind, leaving a trail.

To the audience:

If an ear flaps right here

Blown by the breeze

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables "'+

Will someone feel it

Across the seas?

In the BLACK THEATRE WORLD we see PUPPET VIVI on her puppet scooter on its way to the

lab.

DH EGGS LAB #2 - THE FRAUD REVEALED

DR EGG is sitting in his lab, continuing his experiments. The tomato plant has now been replanted

in a pot and has grown quite large. It is covered with tomatoes and hybrid plant/animals. Other

animals or experiments in the lab previously may have increased in size or changed colour,

suggesting the passing of time. The SNAKE appears perched up high. She whispers consphatorially

to the audience.

SNAKE

Waiting for humans to do something new

Can be terribly tedious

But it can be worth it.

When they make a BIG mistake

Interesting things can happen

Things even / haven't seen.

During the SNAKE narration, images float around DR EGG'S head, reflecting his face in some

micro shapes and revealing his hopes and dreams for fame.

Dr Egg's concentrating

On the tiny things in life

The seeds

The puffl^alls

Tiny spores that take flight.

Inside his world

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables "-^

A kaleidoscope of cells

A helix of inventions

Miracles of life.

Dr Egg dreams

In his decrepit lab

He longs for the fame

Of a new discovery

Wants to make his mark.

The curiosity and hope

Of his early years are cmmbling

His fame as elusive as

His fish-eyed tomato.

PERFORMER VIVI arrives on FULL-SIZED SCOOTER. She crouches in front of the lab benches.

There is a small door in the cabinet with the name 'Dr Egg' on it. The SNAKE is

uncharacteristically excited.

To the audience:

This is the moment

I've been waiting for

A trade could take place

At any time now...

Another plank

In the human flaw!

The SNAKE mbs her hands together.


VIVI enters. She pops her head up into the lab bench. DR EGG is delighted she has remmed and

goes straight to fetch his scalpel. He thumps the bench and an array of scalpels appears. He takes

one and begins to sharpen it.

SAD MAN TO THE RESCUE #1

PUPPET MAN wakes up in front of the T.V. He tums the light on. We see the SMALL WORLD

HOUSE hght switch on. The Man looks around for VIVI and sees nothing but bits of scarf.

He tums the light out. We see the SMALL WORLD HOUSE light go out.

We see the SMALL WIRE BICYCLE leave the house. Lights down.

Lights up on DR EGG and VIVI. On seeing the scalpels, VIVI reneges and sinks down into the

bench, DR EGG is dismayed and can't find her.

Suddenly she pops up again, in another part of the lab.

He indicates to her to stop and tries to show her something he has created to capture her

imagination. He shows her some specially modified square tomatoes. He juggles them, bounces

them and to top it off, packs them into a square box.

She is not impressed. She loses interest and descends.

The SNAKE picks off a tomato and bites into it. She grimaces. Speaks directly to the audience.

SNAKE

These GM tomatoes

Just don't taste the same do they?

Focuses on DR EGG.


You're hopeless Dr Egg

Your folly's exposed

You've never made a body part

Not even a nose!

The desire for this prize

Has made you a fool

It's patently clear

You're ignoring the mles.

DR EGG desperately searches for something else to impress VIVI. This time it's a tomato that

beats like a heart. He holds it desperately against his own heart, the failed romantic that he is.

VIVI'S not impressed. She loses interest and descends.

The SNAKE shows her impatience, she is keen for the trade to take place. She mutters and

comments in the background during these exchanges.

SNAKE

She's seen it all before Egg

Same old! Same old!

You'll have to do better than that!

DR EGG searches for yet another thing. He shows her a modified plant/animal. It hatches like an

egg and lets out a glow in the dark creature. It has a beak and legs, but the body of a tomato.

That's a bit more like it!

As DR EGG tries to engage her in the idea, the creature scurries off. For VIVI this is the last

straw. This time VIVI goes to leave altogether. She is unconvinced that he can make this ear and

has lost her motivation for coming here.

Oops! Not impressed!


Follow that chicken!

DR EGG is getting desperate.

As VIVI begins to leave, she remembers her need to solve her father's problem. We see a framed

portrait of the MAN and VIVI together, possibly in a 'Van Gogh' style.

She regains her motivation for being there and goes to DR EGG, laying her head on the lab bench,

right in front him. He takes and carefully places her head in his elaborate extraction contraption. The

contraption lifts her hair up and hooks it above so he can have direct access to the ear.

DR EGG is about to lift the scalpel and take a cell.


The lights go on upstage and we see the PUPPET MAN, on his bent puppet bike heading to the lab.

The PUPPET DOG is also running towards him from the opposite direction.

SFX: WHEELS CREAKING. CLUNKING. PEDDLING. DOG PANTING.

Lights go down on PUPPET MAN.

Lights up on DR EGG and VIVI. DR EGG finally remembers he should give VIVI an ethical

warning. The doctor puts down the scalpel and grabs a clipboard that has the pro forma warning in it.

The SNAKE narrates over Dr Egg's shoulder, while DR EGG mouths the words.

THE WARNING

SNAKE

First a little word of waming

Doctor wants to make it clear

Things like this are risky

Not easy to predict.


Stuck in the contraption, VIVI waits, awkwardly and expectantly. She wants to hear the waming.

DR EGG apologetically goes on.

The ear could be rejected.

VIVI the curious cat is not phased, indicates - yeah and?

There's an extra risk of cancer.

VIVI indicates - yeah and?

A little retro-virus.

VIVI indicates - so? She is impatient. She wants to get on with it.

Global genetic disaster.

This sounds a bit more serious. VIVI grabs the clipboard and wamings and has a closer look. She

flicks a couple of pages and mouths as she reads. THE SNAKE narrates her words and also gets

involved here, possibly mouthing the words in brackets.

Children with pigs' ears.

(mistakes happen!)

Mutant duck virus.

(Why make a little mistake when you can make a big one!)

Ear mould.

(Ooh that is nasty!)

Fine print.. .Full quarantine

Family locked away!

70 Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables

(Alright, sometimes you have to call it a day...)

Now VIVI does look scared and uncertain. DR EGG grabs the clipboard back. Shows her she was

reading from the wrong page.

He indicates to her that it just a tiny cell that he requires. An ANIMATED PROJECTION could

spell out this micro-procedure, so the audience doesn't think it's the whole ear he's taking!

While VIVI procrastinates the SNAKE seems impatient.

SNAKE

Waiting, waiting...

Come along Vivi

Who cares about mistakes?

A tiny little cell

Is the only thing he'll take.

For the second time, VIVI sees the framed portrait of her dad and her together.

She still wants to go ahead. She signs the form and emphatically places her head in the contraption a

second time. Bring it on!

The SNAKE is very excited and speaks directiy to the audience

SNAKE

This is it!

The trade!

DR EGG raises his scalpel, ready to cut.

What is the price


Of a daughter's love?

Black out.


The lights go up on the PUPPET MAN on puppet bike again. He is getting close to the laboratory.

This time the PUPPET DOG approaches and to avoid a collision, the MAN swerves to get around it.

As his bike wobbles, the MAN comes off, but grapples with the DOG, losing his toupee in the

process.

The PERFORMER MAN decides to overcome the DOG. He wants to be free! The fight continues.

The performer scale can give some authenticity to the 'fight' quality.

Triumphantly he overcomes the DOG and sends it on its way, he has better things to do today!

With a full and beating heart, the PUPPET MAN remounts his puppet bicycle and heads on his way.

His obsession has disappeared as he finally takes responsibility for his most important priority, his

daughter VIVI!

SFX: WHEELS CREAKING. PEDDLING. DOG YELPS.

Lights go down on PUPPET DAD and PUPPET DOG.

Lights go up on DR EGG and PERFORMER VIVI.

THE EXPERIMENT #2

The cell harvesting is over. DR EGG is in action in the lab. VIVI follows DR EGG as if she is his

assistant. She has a bandaged ear, echoing the earlier image of her father.

They are playing with test tubes and liquid mediums. They add tomato, chicken and fish hormones

from the containers on the bench to a central tank. LINE-DRAWN ANIMATED PROJECTION as

the tank fills with water. They juggle the test tubes and mirror each other's actions in a slapstick

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ' 2

routine. DR EGG is wearing some sort of viewing device, which magnifies. VIVI also gets to try it

on. She is a bumbling assistant.

As their busy work takes place, now around the tank, the benches begin to separate and we are left

with only the tank on its plinth in the space.

Finally everything is ready. They step back to watch. PROJECTED bubble activity (calm at first)

starts in the TANK. It builds chaotically and subsides momentarily into darkness as we see a

BLACK LIGHT THEATRE puppet ear begin to grow. This growth is shown in short flashes, which

builds to a crescendo as the whole body forms.

SFX: BUBBLES AND LIOUID.

The bubble activity builds again in another burst of energy.

The bubbles subside and a complete ear emerges and floats,

DR EGG and VIVI are very excited!

GROWING A HUMAN

Suddenly there is another burst of projected bubble activity.

SFX: BUBBLES AND LIOUID.

Immediately we see a BLACK THEATRE eye that has emerged from the ear. It is attached with a

few strands of nerve.

The eye looks at the ear.

VIVI and DR EGG are shocked and slightiy confused, unsure of the implications of this new

development.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables '^

Lights up on PERFORMER VIVI and DR EGG. We see more bubbles and, another eye emerges.

m: RUBBLES AND LIOUID.

Miraculously, a whole CHILD is beginning to emerge in the tank. It has a large head and is curled

like a foetus in the water as its legs emerge. The TANK-CHILD looks normal except for some

tomato like sprouts coming from its shoulders and a suggestion of downy feathers growing from its

amis and hands. The projected Bubble activity retums to it's former calm, surrounding TANK-

CHILD in a dreamy space.

VIVI and DR EGG are horrified by the consequences of their actions. They separate immediately,

unsure of what to do. VIVI immediately mns to hide somewhere in the lab, peeking out from the

benches. DR EGG starts pacing frantically.

The TANK-CHILD is meanwhile reaching out to both of them from the central tank, but they are

unable to respond. TANK-CHILD is completely unwanted.

SAD MAN ARRIVES

The PERFORMER MAN bursts into the room on full-size bike with headlights. He jumps off his

bike and it continues along a track and off stage. As he enters the laboratory area he immediately

sees what is happening and goes to VIVI. Vivi looks at her dad, terrified. Is he angry at what she has

done? More importantiy, who is this no-longer-sad MAN?

The MAN gets down to her level. He embraces her and then moves with her to face what she has

created. At last he is able to be a father, and VIVI can be the child!

DR EGG, the MAN and VIVI freeze, as the SNAKE narrates.

IHE DILEMMA

The SNAKE emerges from above the tank, where it is a puppeteer for the new creature, as if it has

been present in the mix.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables '^4

yPY; THE ODD BUBBLE POPS.

SNAKE

Even I haven't seen

One of these before!

Mistakes can be interesting!

What makes a human?

Should it look like you?

If it's half tomato

Do you eat it, or keep it?

When does life begin?

When the egg splits?

Or when the child

Is sitting on your lap?

Vivi's sacrifice

Seemed small at the time

Just a little piece

Of flesh for progress.

Now she's made a ripple

Will it mn rings around her?

Could she have held this

Scientific miracle at bay?

To the audience:

Faced with a discovery

Bigger than you.


What would you do?

What is the weight of a human soul?

DR EGG and VIVI re-emerge and continue their individual dilemmas. The MAN is fascinated by

the TANK-CHILD. VIVI is avoiding the tank. DR EGG is still pacing frantically.

The SNAKE watches the MAN who is absolutely doting on the new creature.

SNAKE

Dad sees Vivi's eyes

And his dear wife's lashes

You know I hate emotion

But it is rather precious.

The SNAKE approaches VIVI and reflects.

SNAKE

Vivi's got a question

Bigger than the rest

Who's responsible

For the creature

For this mess?

The SNAKE reflects on DR EGG.

SNAKE

Dr Egg got more than

He bargained for

His tomato grew into

A whole lot more


A board of enquiry awaits

What does our scientist do?

DR EGG stops pacing. In a sudden reprise, he looks briefly at TANK-CHILD, and then at the MAN.

Suddenly he grabs a scalpel from the bench and offers it to the MAN, indicating that he can still

have the ear. DR EGG offers to help him cut it from TANK-CHILD. Why waste a good ear?

The MAN is outraged. He grabs DR EGG and they have a scuffle, endangering other experiments in

the lab, VIVI and TANK-CHILD, during the fight. The MAN overcomes DR EGG and manages to

get the scalpel, throwing it to the floor then pulling DR EGG up by the collar. He drags him to the

TANK to have a look at TANK-CHILD. VIVI removes the scalpel and places it aside.

TANK-CHILD continues to reach for DR EGG, VIVI and the MAN, but DR EGG and VIVI cannot

bring themselves to embrace it. The MAN, alone, starts to engage with her.

THE DECISION

The MAN looks at the creature. The MAN and TANK-CHILD have a poignant moment. He

responds to her, mirroring her movements, they play together.

VIVI responds to her father's enthusiasm, and looks at the creature in a new light. She starts to

mirror the actions as well.

The MAN, VIVI and TANK CHILD continue to mirror each other's movements.

DR EGG slips to the back, busily destroying/removing evidence and gathering up papers. He finds a

suitcase and packs the papers hurriedly, then at the last moment, snatches the scalpel and puts it into

his suitcase. Finally he puts on a tropical shirt, hat and dark glasses and sneaks off while they aren't

looking.

SNAKE

Off to Panama?

Goodbye DrEgg!


He wanted to make history

Now he w history!

The SNAKE approaches VIVI and the MAN, and reflects.

SNAKE

Do they take it home?

This sister Vivi never had

The mother she dreamed of?

She exists now

She grows

Do we keep her to cherish

Or try to dispose?

To the audience:

If this vulnerable thing

Was your creation?

What would you do?

Can you love a creature

You can't hold?

The decision is made. DAD and VIVI look at each other. They embrace the tank, circling it with

their arms.

TANK-CHILD GOES HOME

VIVI and the MAN prepare to exit into the world with the tank. To transport it, they tie a baby

blanket around it and place some pram wheels below it.

Lights out on PERFOMER MAN, VIVI and TANK-CHILD.


In BLACK THEATRE WORLD we see PUPPET MAN, PUPPET VIVI and PUPPET TANK-

CHILD making then way through the city.

.^FX: FUNKIER VERSION OF SAD MAN CYCLE THEME.

PROJECTION of animated cityscape from earlier 'windy city' scene. Front curtain closes.

FPTLOGUE; THE SNAKE'S REPRISE

A PROJECTION of the Snake's 'Mythic Realm' reappears on the curtains. A SNAKE IMAGE

begins winding its way back across the screen. Does it take another tasty morsel from the leaves?

SFX: SNAKE REALM THEME MUSIC.

The PERFORMERS narrate to the audience as they pack away some of the stuff.

EPILOGUE VOICES

I'm sure you'd love all the answers, or simply someone to blame. Scientists perhaps?

Evil?

Don't look at the Snake! She kept her hands off this time, hung on the fence. You

humans decided on your own today. That's her defense.

Her time's over now, no need to hang around. She's heading back to a warm rock, for

a long lie down.

The SNAKE image disappears.

THE FINAL CURTAIN

VIVI and the MAN bring on the super 8 projector on a stand. He starts to project Super 8 film

images onto the front curtain. A series of photographic style short segments show THE MAN, VIVI

and TANK-CHILD in daily life.


Images include:

TANK-CHILD ON A SWING: In the park on a swing; water splashes from the tank and

VIVI catches it in buckets.

LUNA PARK: TANK-CHILD on a 'wild-water' ride at a fun fair/Luna Park. VIVI, MAN

and TANK -CHILD'S mouths open in screams.

TANK-CHILD VISITS THE AQUARIUM: TANK-CHILD is face to face with

fish/sharks/octopus in a huge tank. All faces (human and fish) are pressed against the glass,

they each mirror the others movements.

TOMATO COUSINS: TANK-CHILD sits outside in a garden. On either side of her, tall

tomato plants grow. A chicken is perched on the top of the tank. She has still got small

tomato plants sprouting from her shoulders and a few feathers. We see the interconnection

between her, the plants and the chicken.

WRITING ON THE WALL: TANK-CHILD writes on a smah white board in her tank. She

spehs, 'VIVI, PAPA, ME'.

BIRTHDAY PARTY: TANK-CHILD has her birthday cake floating on top of the tank in a

rubber ring, so it doesn't get soggy. She has a plastic party hat on and a new dress.

On stage as they watch, PERFORMER MAN and VIVI have party hats on and the slice of cake on

their plate. They laugh and reminisce. MAN and VIVI exit.

PROJECTIONS continue for a short time.

In the flnal PROJECTED IMAGE, TANK-CHILD looks around and then places her hands on the

rim of her tank as if she is about to emerge.

END


BioHome: The Chromosome Knitting Project

Performance/Installation Script


Performance/Installation Dates: August 16̂ '̂ - 25*'̂ 2006,

Fca Gallery, Faculty Of Creative Arts,

University Of Wollongong.

Duration: 50 Minutes.


Please see print copy for image

SETTING

The Performance takes place in an installation within a 'biotech display home',

BioHome™. Initially the audience enters the gallery to view 4 specific spaces: the 'entry',

the 'chill-out space', the 'kitchen' and a 'display room' area with

bedroom/nursery/knitting room settings. The overall imagery is domestic: a kitchen table

top, a bassinette containing a microscope, a chair with knitting, a bed with a screen, and a

small doll's house containing biotech products and pharmaceuticals. It is only when the

audience enters and inspects more closely that this domesticity is dismpted by the

intriguing and uncomfortable presence of live cells, DNA fibres, plant DNA, Petri-dishes

and needles. Scientific samples will be fully labeled in laboratory or museum style. Data

projection screens are placed behind the 'kitchen' and 'display room' areas, and a plasma

screen is situated in the entry area.

1. BioHome/Lab entry. This will display the markings for PC2 laboratories, the lab

classification for working with bio-hazardous materials. Biohazard signs will be

displayed. Small groups of audience members will be assisted by the performer/s

to put on PC2 standard lab clothing, i.e. lab-coats, mbber gloves, hair ties etc. A

full safety protocol will be explained over the sound system. When the

performance is not taking place, audience members can listen through infra-red

headphones to the safety instructions and other edited interviews.

Maintenance/disposal of the cells and plants will continue in the installation space

outside performance times, i.e. changing cell mediums, refrigeration and

incubation etc. A 'welcoming promotional video' featuring sponsors names and

multilingual translations will be played on the lab entry plasma screen at the start

of the live performance. This video will also be on a loop for the duration of the

installation.

2. The Biotech kitchen/DNA extraction. At a small kitchen bench, the apparatus

will be set up to do rudimentary DNA extractions: a centrifuge, mortar and

pesties, micro-tubes, scales and live seedlings, interspersed with blenders, jugs

and common kitchen apparatus. A number of audience members will be asked to

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables °2

participate with the extraction process, which will involve the grinding,

centrifuging and spooling of DNA threads. This will be a light and informal entry

into the work, not unlike a cooking show, a chance to start asking questions.

Projection: On a data screen behind the kitchen bench, there will be a shde

display of safety equipment and lab equipment from SymbioticA 'Wet Biology'

workshop^. Outside 'show' times, the audience will also view the process of

culturing live cells and plant biology processes^ on a projected screen, allowing

them to be immersed in the living experiments. Sound: A full safety protocol will

be explained over the sound system^.

Bio-Bassinette/Live caterpillar pupae cell interactive. A nursery like setting,

featuring a bio-bassinette, which expresses the notion of 'matemity', 'nurture' and

'kinship'. In the bassinette, under a microscope, a small vial of cultured sf9^

(caterpillar pupae) cells suggests a tiny being. Nicknamed 'Thumbelina', this is a

wished for child - not quite what was asked for, but this will do nonetheless.

Sound: This setting will be accompanied by sound on infra-red headphones

which incorporates edited text from verbatim bioethics discussions recorded by

the artist at the SymbioticA workshop. A live sound mix by Temmi Namshima

accompanies the live performance.'° Projection: This setting features video

^ SymbioticA Wet Biology workshop, held at University of Westem Australia, School of Anatomy and Human Biology in Perth, Sept 4*- 7* for the Biennale of Electronic Arts, 2004. ^ Footage taken by Virginia Hilyard (Plant DNA extraction) and Cominos Zervos (Fish nerve cell explant extractions from SymbioticA Wet Biology workshop, Wollongong University, Faculty of Creative Arts and School of Biological Science, 20-24* June 2005) ^ Safety Protocol is taken from the SymbioticA Wet Biology workshop handouts, prepared by Gary Cass. workshop facilitator. ' Sf9 cells from BioHome^^' (sponsored by Invitrogen™) are derived from Spodoptera frugiperda (fall army worm), pupal ovary tissue. They are usually used for baculovirus propagation and recombinant protein expression. '" This sound results from a collaboration with Terumi Narushima, Doctoral student, University of Wollongong, Faculty of Creative Arts, who also attended the SymbioticA Wet Biology workshop in Wollongong, 2005. Music utilises recorded sounds from the SymbioticA wet Biology workshop, placed in a Pure Data (Pd) programme software to create computerized pattems based on a range of knitting stitches, i.e. honeycomb, fern stitch, moss stitch, herringbone etc. This can change the sound for the gallery setting, as well as being used in live performance.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables "-^

footage of sf9 cells, and footage of artist cuhuring sf9 cells in the laboratory'*. A

muTor placed on the ceiling deflects this image onto the muslin material covering

the bassinette.

Also featured: the Dolls house/Miniature biotech display home. Here many

samples of biotech products are housed: boxes of pharmaceuticals - including

vials of pharmed hormones'^ - small toy animals, miniature ChromoKnit

Dollies™, micro-tubes, needles and sterile swabs for injections.

4. The temperature controlled bio-knitting basket/Chromosome knitting.

This space features a knitting basket, which contains a mini fridge in which

refrigerated salmon DNA fibres" are stored. Also featured in the knitting basket

are knitting needles, wool and two ChromoKnitDollies™^\ This image suggests

waiting and again, mothering, nurturing. The audience will be able view DNA

fibres or wool. ChromoKnit^^^ Doll will be available for purchase after the

presentation, and may feature an accompanying DNA readout based on a child's

amniocentesis results'^. Accompanied by interactive knitting pattem music.

Projection: Live camera feed in performance of knitting fibrous DNA and wool,

projected on data screen behind. Sound: Temmi's live music mix in performance.

5. The bedroom/day surgery/egg extraction. This space feamres a bed with a

hospital trolley on wheels, which contains syringes and props representing

equipment for egg extraction, i.e. knitting needles, glass of red water with straw.

Sf9 cells were shot through an inverted microscope x 100 times. All footage was taken at the University of Wollongong School of Biological Sciences, Cell Culturing Department, with assistance from Associate Professor Mark Wilson. 12

Pharmaceuticals from IVF procedures include Puregon® and Orgalutran ®, manufactured by Organon corporation, the Netherlands. Some of these pharmaceuticals are 'pharmed', i.e. involve the use of live animal products such as hamster hormones.

DNA Sodium from Salmon Testes, Product # D126-1G, in fibrous form, is sponsored by Sigma Aldrich Pty Ltd.

This is a replica of Pair #1 in the set of 13 human chromosomes, images taken from authors own Amniocentesis (genetic) test during pregnancy. The ChromoKnit '^^ trademark is emphasized to signify the branding and intellectual property issues surrounding genetic and genomic 'products' in the Biotechnology and 'Life Science' industries. The dolls are knitted by performer/artist Pamela Drysdale.

Results of author's own amniocentesis (genetic) test during pregnancy.


golden wrapped Easter egg. The performer will explore the underiying scientific

procedures in IVF egg extraction. She will demonstrate the hormones used for

Follicle Stimulation, as well as the Ovum Pick UP (OPU) and Egg Transfer (E.T),

procedures common in IVF. A verbatim account based on interviews with IVF

patients will give audience members the chance to assess the invasive or

therapeutic nature of these processes and possibly see themselves as a subject of

biotechnology. A demonstration of the full procedure will be undertaken using the

ChromoKnit Dolly™ as a demonstration subject.

6. Chill out zone/ interactive space. This is a 'chill-out' space where the audience

can relax on ottomans from Freedom fumiture and look at the BioHome™ web

site, play with the BioHome ChromoKnit'^^ music interactive Pd site, read a

selection of printed material including reviews and articles. Displays three Al size

prints of wool fibres x 100 times'* and view 'Do-It Yourself DVD's on DNA

extraction and cell culturing.

At the web site there is a simple mechanism for the audience to record what

excites and scares them about biotechnology. They will be able to record their

response in written or recorded (sound) form. The writer will regularly edit these

and place them on a web site within the exhibition.

At the BioHome™ ChromoKnit™ interactive music screen the audience will be

able to 'knit' their own sounds in an interactive sound element.'^

TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE IN PERFORMANCE

One performer plays all personas, with technical assistance from a video operator and a

sound artist. The performer will transform into a number of 'personas' during the

'̂ Images taken by author using confocal microscope at University of Sydney School of Agricultural Science, facilitated by Pia Smith (PHD candidate) " Utilising recorded sounds from the SymbioticA Wet Biology workshop, placed in Pd programme software to create computerized pattems based on a range of knitting stitches. Op cit.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables °5

performance. The technical/laboratory assistant will mn live video recordings, as well as

assisting in experiments, crowd movement and audience participation. The technical

assistant uses a live video feed to focus on products and procedures during performance

as well as the performer's small hand movements associated with knitting DNA or wool,

and facial expressions related to injections and body interventions.

Terumi Namshima plays the live sound-mix from her laptop computer using 'Pd'

software. This takes place throughout the performance. The music will emerge more

strongly when performer is in physical or practical activities, i.e. not delivering text.

Sound cues from the Radio Play The Woman Who Knitted Herself a Child '̂ that are used

in the 'wished-for-child' segment and the composed sound from that play'^ which

accompanies the 'Storyteller Persona' are also played using Pd software.

PERFORMANCE STYLES

1. Scientist Persona.

Demonstrates the laboratory procedures for extracting DNA, knitting with DNA and

presents the Biotech display doll's house. Uses a 'sales pitch' like a 'celebrity TV chef

around these live demonstrations. Plenty of room for standup and audience participation

and salesperson style. She also performs scientific procedures with puppets, i.e.

demonstrates IVF on ChromoKnit Dolly™. Typical dialogue, 'We are just going to do a

simple injection today..."

Signified by highly professional, presentational style in lab coat and gloves.

2. The Stepford Persona.

A naive and eccentric housewife persona, inviting the newcomer into the space, exploring

objects and products with a domestic simplicity and sense of kitsch. This persona speaks

in second case, ''You can do this, you can do that". Or, "Youflnd if you clean up as you

go, you feel a lot better about yourself during the day."

"* Broadcast Dec 19*, 2004, ABC Radio National 'Airplay'. 19

Musical composition by Matthew Fargher.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables " ^

This incorporates 'Crafty/creative' style. The woman is obsessive and gets carried away

with craft decoration with wool and biotech containers and products, i.e. creating 'micro

tube hangings' for BioHome.

Signified by highly personal quirky style. At times she drops into a personal space:

talking in fu-st person/normal voice, using small personal movement style.

Note that during the performance there is some blurring between the 'Scientific' and

'Stepford' personas, just as there is the blurring of lines between the home space and

laboratory, which will intensify during the performance.

3. Storytelling style. As the performer knits she tells a version of the Bioethical fable.

The Woman Who Knitted Herself a Child in first person.

Signified by knitting and also a 'gothic' lighting state where possible; dimmed lights and

a single standard lamp which illuminates her face from below.

4. The wished-for child. Voice-over from the radio play. The Woman Who Knitted

Herself a Child. This signifies that the child is present either literally or metaphorically in

the BioHome^"^ space.

Artistic/collaboration credits:

Writer, performer, devisor, producer: Catherine Fargher

Direction and corporeal dramaturgy: Nikki Heywood,

Textual dramaturgy: Noelle Janaczewska, Merlinda Bobis.

Visual dramaturgy: Brogan Bunt, Virginia Hilyard.

Knitted elements: Pamela Drysdale.

Plasma Screen performers: Terumi Narushima, Catherine Fargher, Denise Cepeda.

Interactive sound creation: Temmi Narushima.

Composition: Temmi Namshima, Matthew Fargher, Ian Moorehead and Catherine Oates.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables " '

Video footage: Catherine Fargher, Virginia Hilyard, Cominos Zervos, Tim Watts.

Sound recording and sound editing: Catherine Fargher.

Sound operation: Aaron Hull.

Video editing: Catherine Fargher, Virginia Hilyard, Peter Oldham.

Web design, plasma screen design, logos: Jessica Ellis, Greg Clout and Robert Dinnerville.

Design and technical support: Russell Emerson (University of Sydney Centre for

Performance Studies) Didier Balez, Alistair Davies, Aaron Hull.

Installation space design: Catherine Fargher, Greg Clout, Jessica Elhs.

Production management: Jessica Ellis.

Documentation: Peter Oldham, (video) Russell Emerson (stills).

Biological elements and collaborations:

SymbioticA, UWA: Gary Cass, Oron Catts, lonatt Zurr, Guy Ben-Ary, Jane Coakley;

UOW School of Biological Sciences: Dr Ren Zhang, Somanath Bhat, Sharon Robinson

(Plant Biology), Associate Professor Mark Wilson (ceh culturing) Pamela Morgan, Marie

Dwarte; School of Biomedical Science, UOW: Melissa Errey.

USyd School of Ag Science: Pia Smith, Ivan Desailly, Colin Bailey.

Technical and academic assistance:

Faculty of Creative Arts, UOW: Brogan Bunt, Dr Merlinda Bobis, Aaron Hull, Dale

Dumpleton, Olena Cullen, Craig O'Brien, Marius Foley, Grant Ellmers, Didier Balez,

Jacqui Redgate, Alistair Davies.

Sponsorship: Eppendorf (John Lee), Invitrogen (Hanna Lampinen), Sigma Aldrich,

Playworks Writers Workshop, Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT).

PRE-PERFORMANCE SET UP:

Entry area: lab coats, gloves, infra-red headphones, and ChromoKnit Doll™ in package.

Plasma display screen.

Volume 1; Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 88

Kitchen area: Shower cap, gloves, water in jug, scissors, scales, pea seedhngs, containers,

micro tubes, sieve, centrifuge, cmshed ice, ethanol, mortar and pestle, extraction buffer,

pipettes, crochet hook or glass hooks. Live video screen.

Bedroom area: Sheets on bed. ChromoKnit Doll™ placed in bed.

Bassinette area: SP9 cells in vial, microscope, bottle of sfl5 medium and muslin cloths.

Knitting area: Salmon DNA in small bar fridge, contained in knitting basket. Knitting

needles and assorted wool in basket. ChromoKnit Doll™.

Biotech dolls house area: small dolls, miniature ChromoKnit Dolls™, syringes, and

hormone treatment dmg boxes.


THE PERFORMANCE TEXTS

WELCOME

SCIENTIST PERSONA and ASSISTANT encourage the audience to enter and watch the

WELCOME SCREEN DVD.

DVD CUE - WELCOME SCREEN DVD ON PLASMA SCREEN

Data screen video shows performer in SCIENTIST PERSONA welcoming the audience

into the space.

Data screen voice-over

Welcome to BioHome™/ In a few moments ladies and gentleman, you and your

families will be able to enter the model biotech home and see the range of rooms

and products that are on display for you today. We have a fully appointed kitchen,

nursery, lounge room and bedroom, even a miniature biotechnology display

home. Today you will experience the latest in biotech science as it meets the

everyday technologies of your home. Explore the products on offer and make up

your own minds! Feel free to experience ChromoKnit ̂ "̂ technology.

We think you'll agree that some of our products promise an amazing future for

you and your children, but there are some traditional comforts as well. Take time

to relax, interact and try things out, it's yours to explore. Please enter and enjoy

BioHome™!

SCIENTIST PERSONA and ASSISTANT appear outside the space to bring the audience

in. They encourage the audience to enter the space. Once inside, the audience will be

allowed to wander through the installation where a full safety procedure is played out

over sound system.


SAFETY

SCIENTIST PERSONA and ASSISTANT hand out lab coats and gloves and help

prepare audience for PCI lab safety.

Scientist Persona

You will need to put on these lab coats and gloves in preparation for the PCI

level laboratory procedures taking place in BioHome^". Please listen carefully to

the following safety precautions and make your way into the BioHome™ display

area.

DVD CUE- LAB SLIDESHOW- SCREEN I

SOUND CUE- SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS

As the audience walks through the installation, an Introduction to the General Rules of

Safe Laboratory Conduct is played. Slideshow displays a range of laboratory features, i.e.

eye baths, dump showers, autoclave/biohazard bags. Audience is free to explore

installation at this time. SCIENTIST PERSONA prepares for DNA extraction in

BioHome Kitchen area. Puts her own gloves and coat on, and ties up hair in preparation

for the experiment. She does this in a performative/practical style.

Scientist Persona/Safety Voice-over

Welcome to BioHome™. As you enter BioHome™, you will need to prepare for

full laboratory safety, as we will be dealing with biotech-products including

ChromoKnit™ technology. We treat every product as hazardous until we have a

working knowledge of the product.

I. Safety in BioHome™ is an individual and personal responsibility. A

casual attitude should never be adopted. Always be conscious of potential

hazards.


2. Clothing suitable to laboratory conditions must be worn; e.g. closed

shoes with non-slip soles, laboratory coats, etc. Thongs must not be worn.

Gloves must be worn when handling corrosive chemicals. If you are

wearing gloves, remove them before you leave, if you have a hazardous

chemical on your glove and turn the door handle, it may be passed on to

someone else.

3. Never run in BioHome™ or along corridors.

4. Persons working in BioHome™ should make themselves aware of the

positioning offlre and safety equipment within the room.

Fire escape routes must be kept clear at all times.

5. Washing facilities are available in BioHome™ and should be utilized

after any BioHome™ operation.

6. NEVER allow toxic materials to get into the mouth or touch the lips

NEVER pipette substances by mouth

NEVER sniff at possibly toxic substances (white powder in laboratories

can be dangerous!)

NEVER store flammable solvents in a domestic refrigerator.

NEVER work alone.

7. Chemical Spillage. Regard all substances as hazardous. We are dealing

with possible mutagens. Always work with the smallest possible amounts

of chemicals.

If possible, indicate dump shower slide.


If you are affected by a chemical spillage. Dump showers can deposit the

equivalent of 20 litres of water in 2 minutes. Eye baths can wash toxic

chemicals or contaminants that have spilt or sprayed into your eyes- your

partner in a team may have to lead you to the eye bath, even though they

may be the person who accidentally sprayed acid in your eyes!

8. Biohazards. Biohazard bags are used to destroy any genetically modifled

organisms, which could contaminate other activities in the laboratory.

These are put in autoclaves- a giant oven, which heats things to a

temperature that will destroy possible hazardous materials. We need to

protect outside organisms as well. Ifaphids enter a biotech house or lab,

they could take possible mutagens outside. GM material can escape.

At some stage the SCIENTIST PERSONA enters the kitchen area, and begins to prepare

for the DNA extraction, while the safety instmctions are still playing. The kitchen unit

will have a small set of seedlings on the bench top, as well as some kitchen containers

and a centrifuge.

BUILDING BLOCKS OF LIFE

SCIENTIST PERSONA introduces DNA isolation from plants. She chooses two

participants to take part in the experiment.

LIVE CAMERA CUE- SCREEN 1. LIVE VIDEO OF THE EXPERIMENT IS PUT UP ON

SCREEN

Scientist persona

This is the BioHome™ kitchen area. As you can see we're dealing with plant

materials here, nothing too scary at first. Today we will be extracting DNA from

these pea seedlings in a simple technique, which you will be able to do at home.

I'd like two volunteers to assist in the experiment. You wiU be working in a team.


As the instructions indicated.. .another important aspect of lab preparation is

grooming. The aim is to introduce as few contaminants as possible. I always use

good skin products to make sure my skin is not flaking. If our hair is long, we

need to tie it back or wear a shower cap. Sometimes the thing most likely to cause

contamination is ourselves.

SCIENTIST PERSONA shows the moisturizer to camera. Offers it to participants. Offers

a shower cap to any participant with long hair.

SCIENTIST PERSONA takes the audience through the following procedure. Throughout

the experiment a mnning commentary can be maintained.

Scientist persona

1. Take about 0.5 g leaf material. Weigh this on a scale that has been zeroed. (If

using Eppendorf mini micro tubes- take three leaves of plant material)

2. Cut the leaves into smaller pieces and place them into a mortar. Add 2000PI (2

ml) of extraction buffer, and grind with a pestle thoroughly to disrupt the cells

and release the DNA. (If using Eppendorf mini micro tubes- take .5 ml extraction

buffer and use the 'mini pestle' in the tube)

(During cutting of leaves) It's important to use young leaves, very fresh. Just the

bits that are growing. Even if they're cut for a few hours the DNA starts to break

down. Once a leaf has grown to full size, or a plant is old, it has stopped growing.

The cells won't be splitting; there won't be much DNA. You can use young leaves

from peas, nasturtium, tomatoes; the fresh vegetables from market where the

vegetables are stih alive, carrots in a bunch, or anything with the leaves stiU on.

Surprisingly, extraction buffer is simply a detergent to break down the cell walls;


you can use a household detergent if you are doing this at home. You can even try

to extract DNA from other foods at home- split peas, chicken livers, or bananas.

3. Transfer the plant tissue and buffer to a 1.5 ml micro tube.

4. Centrifuge the tube for 3 minutes at high speed in a micro-centrifuge to

sediment debris. The debris contains cell wall material and will pellet at the

bottom of the micro tube. The DNA stays in the liquid above which is called the

supernatant.

(During 3 minutes of centrifuging) You can do this at home too- push it through a

muslin cloth or a wire mesh, or tea strainer. If you need to make a lot of DNA you

can use a food processor.

DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is the hereditary material of an organism. These

very long double stranded molecules contain many genes. DNA has been called

the "building blocks of life." The human genome has even been called "The book

of life", which indicates the powerful place this molecule holds in the 21" century

imagination. Cambridge University scientists Watson and Crick discovered the

double-helix shape of DNA in 1952.

Everything contains DNA: humans, herrings and hamsters. DNA bases C, G, T

and A form pairs, that group together in 'Codons', which are equivalent to a

sentence. Codons join together to form blocks of information that become distinct

genes. These genes code for the expression of particular characteristics;

remember one gene-one expression!

Once isolated and purified, the DNA can be used for frrther research such as

cloning or genetic modification of plants and animals. Cloning plant DNA is

relatively easy. We simply remove the nucleus of the female gamete and replace it


with DNA we want to clone. Even cows and sheep are commonly cloned these

days. Cloning a human is proving a little more difficult; no one can show

conclusively that they have done it successfully. The two groups who do claim to

have cloned a human are the Raelians, an organization associated with UFO's

and aliens and the Italian Scientist, Dr Severino Antironi, who claims to have

cloned two babies. For $65,000 you could set up your own laboratory equipment

to clone a human, but it would need to be placed on a boat at sea, in international

waters, to avoid the various government bans on human cloning. It is currently

illegal in most countries to clone a human.

SCIENTIST PERSONA removes the micro tubes from the centrifuge and contmues to

assist volunteers with the experiment.

Scientist persona

5. Transfer 300 ul (0.3ml) of the supernatant to afresh micro tube, taking care

not to disturb the 'pellet' of solid material that is left.

6. Add 800 ul (0.8ml) of cold ethanol by carefully layering it on top of the

supernatant.

7. Dip the sealed glass pipette or crochet hook up and down in the micro tube,

gently mixing the alcohol with the supernatant. The DNA will precipitate as a

white (or green), stringy mass which adheres to the glass rod.

SCIENTIST PERSONA assists the volunteers to 'spool' DNA and shows the micro tubes

with DNA to the camera for the live video feed.

After participants have extracted DNA, the SCIENTIST PERSONA moves to the front,

picks up a falcon tube filled with blue/green water.

96 Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^^

Scientist persona

That's great, you're holding the building blocks of life in your hand.

Performer takes off glasses, as if her eyes are strained.

SOUND CUE: LIVE SOUND MIX - SOUND CUE: #1 PBAD 4

TRANSITION

During this transition, the performer removes her glasses after noticing her vision is

blurry, drops the tube and liquid, and then falls to the floor as if fainting, and spills large

amount of green water. She reveals a highly personal space. She feels around for water.

She mops up the water with paper towels from the kitchen bench, drips it slowly into the

tube and then notices that the audience is there.

SOUND CUE: fCONT. I SFX: LIVE MIX #1 (FADE OUT VOLUME SLIDER)

Once the SFX end, the performer moves immediately into 'STEPFORD PERSONA'. She

looks around the audience. Regains composure.

Stepford persona

You find that if you tidy up as you go, you can feel a lot better about

yourself during the day. Of course you can use almost anything in the

biotech house for decorative purposes as well. These sieves could form a

lovely flying wall frieze, and even the micro tubes can make lovely mobile

for baby, jewelry, or Christmas decorations...

STEPFORD PERSONA demonstrates the craft products to the audience.

She helps someone try on the 'micro-tube jewelry'. Shows feature items to

camera.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables " '

She indicates that the audience can move to the 'display room'

performance area. She asks them to watch out for the wet area caused by

the spilled liquid.

You must be dying to see the rest o/BioHome™. Do come inside.... mind

the water.. .it's a bit sticky around here, a bit slippery... mucousy. Please

feel free to take a stool if you 'd like to sit during the rest of the

demonstration.

SOUND CUE: MOTHERS THEME TRACK 2 'THE MARIGOLD HOUR'. (LOUD)

The STEPFORD PERSONA presents in a mock 50's style. She opens her arms wide as if

to 'present' the home for the audience. The performer proceeds to present all of the

different spaces in the house. She highlights the different areas as she moves around and

tidies sheets, bassinette covers etc.

Stepford persona

This is the bedroom!day surgery. Lovely curtains, for some private space!

Wraps herself in a curtain (hidey game). Opens the curtain and reveals

herself smiling to the audience.

Product trolley.. .Temperature controlled bio-knitting basket... the

miniature display house, bio-bassinette...

Moves over to the bio-bassinette space.

SOUND CUE: SFX LIVE MIX (FADE IN): #2 PBAD7


It's great to have your bio-bassinette on wheels. They make it very easy

for you to move it around the house.

Performer moves the BASSINETTE and sheet around. Moves slightly towards

KNITTING AREA.

You can put it in a different room, you can hear it if the bio-baby needs

you... Let's take a look!

LIVE VIDEO CUE: SCREEN 2 CAMERA FOCUS ON DETAILS HERE

SOUND CUE: fCONT. / SFX LIVE MIX (CRESCENDO)

THUMBELINA

STEPFORD PERSONA moves back the muslin wrap. Takes a peek. Pretends the bio-

baby is sleeping. Places finger to mouth, hushing the audience. She is excited, complicit

with the audience.

She feels the outside of the bassinette lovingly. Pushes back the muslin cloth cover.

Reveals what is inside. Plays with the microscope; loves it, sensitively, hke a baby. She

moves the microscope arms up and down. Cleans it with the muslin cloth.

She picks up the vial of cells. Cleans it with the muslin cloth. Holds the cehs up to the

light. Plays with them. Looks. Gazes. Holds to cheek. This is the 'wished for' child. Baby

hunger. Precious object.

Performer takes jar of Invitrogen™ sf9 medium. Feeds the cells using a pipette. Stirs up

medium. Pipettes the medium as if she is feeding the cells. She gives a commentary after

completing these practical jobs. Changes to SCIENTIST PERSONA.


Scientist persona

Today's bio-baby, little 'Thumbelina' is from a cell line of caterpillar

pupae, or' sf9' cells. Did you know these cell lines are immortal? Like

bacteria and viruses, cell lines live forever! They just keep on

reproducing. Only sexual reproduction leads to death.

Sf9 cells cost $450 per ml. I keep these butterfly pupae alive with

Invitrogen ™ sf9 medium; it's a standard cell food with vitamins and

minerals. The mediums used for mammalian cells -for instance mouse or

human cancer cells - contain serum that is made from fetal calf placenta.

The calf foetus does die in the procedure.

Selection of human foetuses for abortion based on gender or chromosomal

abnormalities has increased with the spread of ultra-sound technologies

and genetic tests. Unwanted daughters are being aborted at startling rates

in China and across much of India, while the West is aborting more

foetuses for chromosomal abnormality.

Little 'Thumbelina' needs feeding twice per week. When the flask is

confluent, or full of cells, I place the cells into two flasks so they don't get

crowded. I place one in this Eppendorf 'cell warmer', which keeps them at

exactly 28 degrees C.

SOUND CUE: fCONT 1 SFX LIVE MIX (CRESCENDO)

TRANSITION

Performer places the cells back under the microscope. Changes to STEPFORD

PERSONA. Takes the muslin cloth and again cleans the whole microscope. Indicates to

the audience the baby is sleeping now. She lingers over the cot, cleaning, watching.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^ ̂ ^

She places the muslin over the bassinette frame and puts her finger to mouth again.

SOUND CUE: fCONT J SFX LIVE MIX (DECRESCENDO)

Stepford Persona

My little one's immortal, isn't that wonderful!

Performer sings a lullaby 'Cotton Eyed Joe' . She rocks the bassinette back and forth.

"If it weren't for the sake of cotton eyed Joe, I'd have been married a long

time ago, I'd have been married a long time ago."

Moves the bassinette back to the original BASINETTE position.

Stepford persona.

When I'm knitting I like to keep the bio-bassinette nearby, so I can hear if

Thumbelina needs me.

Changes to SCIENTIST PERSONA.

DNA KNITTING 1

Scientist persona

Let's open up the temperature controlled bio-knitting basket and see

what's inside.

^° 'Cotton Eyed Joe', is a traditional American folk lullaby, dealing with abortion. The term 'Cotton Eyed Joe' signifies the 'needle' used in back yard abortions.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^^^

SOUND CUE: fCONT J SFX LIVE MIX (CRESC.): #1 + #2 + #3 PBAD5

SCIENTIST PERSONA commences looking inside the knitting basket and picks up

Salmon DNA in a small container.

LIVE VIDEO CAMERA CUE. - SCREEN 2 (CLOSE UP ON DNA)

With the use of DNA strands, knitting can become more than a craft - it

can become a living art form.

If you've tried Mohair, Angora, Homespun Alpaca, why not try DNA from

calf thymus, salmon testes, arctic moss? With literally hundreds of DNA

products to choose from the DNA knitter need never be bored!

Performer prepares DNA on a plate, ready to knit it. Starts to take DNA from container

and starts to splice and knit it. Changes to STEPFORD PERSONA.

Stepford Persona

Today I'm casting on DNA from salmon testes. This is a commercial

product from Sigma Aldrich Corporation you can buy over the Internet. It

costs $160 per gram. You 'II need to store it below 4 degrees C. It is a

living product, so you do need to prepare for full PCI laboratory safety.

It's a bit sticky and dissolves in water. You need to wear gloves so it

doesn 't stick to your hands as you knit it.

2, 4, 6, 8.. .DNA is made from 4 bases: guanine, cytosine, adenine,

thymine. A bit like the four main knitting stitches, every living thing can be

made from these four bases: plants, birds, reptiles, and mammals.


If you're knitting a child's leg say, you can cast on 24 stitches, then knit

and purl rows if you want a ribbed look, or plain knit or purl for a more

rugged look. Why not use any of the pattem stitches, fern stitch,

herringbone, moss stitch, honeycomb for a 'special' effect. You can make

all sorts of choices about what sort of baby you knit. If you want an innie

belly button for instance, you might drop a few stitches, or add a few more

for an outie, you can create all sorts of looks for the eyes, Asiatic, almond,

button noses, black hair, blonde. It is wonderful, what you can do with a

few stitches and a DNA product!

Today I'm knitting a doll.

Performer cleans up the DNA, puts it back in fridge.

Stepford Persona

We'll put the DNA away for now. It dries up if it's exposed for too long...

.. .I'll demonstrate with 8-ply acrylic for you today.

She starts to knit with 8-ply wool and as she does, assumes the position of

the STORYTELLER. Moves the lamp light to below her face, making a

ghostly gothic style illumination. Takes full focus; this is a chance for the

audience to sit and listen. Draws people in. The story is delivered quietly

in a singsong voice, as if this is a slightly scary lullaby she is singing to

the audience.

LIGHTING CUE: END GENERAL LIGHTING STATE. DARKER STATE. LAMP

UNDER CHIN

LIVE VIDEO CUE: CLOSE UP ON KNITTING

SOUND CUE: SFX: LIVE MIX 'TINY STITCHES' (RADIO PLAY) SOUNDTRACK


STORY 1

Storyteller Persona

Now. Once I worked in the laboratory as a microbiologist with twenty other

scientists. One night, I was working late, cloning the cells of animal viruses and

waiting for them to multiply. I really hated waiting.

I hated waiting because it gave me time to think. I thought about a lot of things,

especially the fact that while all the other microbiologists and geneticists or

plasma-wave specialists had gone home to their families, I had no child at all.

I was a single cell, while all around me others were multiplying.

What did I do? I walked. I twiddled my thumbs, trum-te trum. But no amount of

walking and twiddling made those cells divide any faster. I needed to find

something to do to pass the time. I remembered the hobby I had loved as a

child. I would start to knit.

I bought in the knitting basket my grandma had given me all those years ago. I

began to cast on a few stitches. Clickety-clack.

Clickety-clack, clickety-clack, my needles clicked and clacked and I started to

knit up all manner of creations. Snakes and rabbits, dolls and trolls.

It's true; I found this occupation of my fingers was creating a calming effect on

my mind. In my reveries I dreamed up all manner of possibilities. I imagined

myself as Marie Curie discovering her radium, Edison with his light bulb, or

Crick and Watson with their DNA double helix. But most of all, the more I

knitted and dreamed, the more I imagined I could create my own child.

SOUND CUE: fCONT 13 TINY STITCHES (CRESCENDO)


One night, when the full moon was gleaming through the plate glass windows, I

was possessed by a strange whim and decided to knit a baby doll. I cast on two,

four, six, eight, ten stitches, beginning with the hands.

SOUND CUE: fCONT. 7 TINY STITCHES (FADE OUT): STOP PLAY

IJGHTING CUE: MOVE LIGHT BACK TO GENERAL LIGHTING STATE

TR/^SITION

Performer becomes the SCIENTIST PERSONA. Picks up the blue ChromoKnit Doll™.

AU the props for the following operation/experiment are placed on the bedside table.

Describes the Chromoknit Doll™, lifting it like a doll/puppet.

LIVE VIDEO CUE: FOCUS ON DOLL

Scientist Persona

Here's a dolly we knitted earlier. This is a ChromoKnit Dolly™. It's based on a

human chromosome # I, placed under a microscope. Chromosomes come in all

shapes and sizes. Some pictures of human chromosomes are featured on the

picture wall over here. (Indicates the framed pictures of human chromosomes)

Some are like teddies, or tiny aliens. This one looks a bit like Marge Simpson,

don't you think? These are the bands of genes, where you might find the coding

for a particular characteristic, .. .hair colour, nose shape, finger length, fish

scales, if you're a fish! Or a mermaid perhaps? The propensity for certain

diseases; breast cancer for instance. Remember 1 gene = 1 expression!

Diseases are attached to particular chromosomes, for instance Downes

Syndrome at #13, or Muscular Dystrophy, which is attached to the X

chromosome, passed on by the mother...

Remember, ChromoKnit DolP'^ is available after the demonstration, and comes

with a unique read out of your own genetic profile. Scared of what your frture

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^^-^

holds? If it's not what you hoped for, you always have ChromoKnit Doll™ for

comfort.

Let's see what ChromoKnit Dolly™ can do.

STEPFORD PERSONA walks the doll, step by step and sings Playschool song.

Performer's head and doll's head move side to side.

(Singing) Walking is as easy as your ABC, won't you come along and

have a walk with me.

LOAD SOUND: #3 PBAD6

EGG EXTRACTION

Changes to SCIENTIST PERSONA. Stands in table area.

Scientist Persona

Here we are in the Bedroom!day surgery. This is a great place for

undertaking any number of small bio- procedures. For instance Collagen

transplants from respected bio- sources, or IVF procedures.

Today we're going to demonstrate a full IVF procedure with dolly. There

are three main stages: Follicle stimulation. Egg extraction (or Ovum pick

up, OPU) and Egg Transfer (E.T).

LIVE CAMERA CUE.- SCREEN 2. CLOSE UP OF PROCEDURE.

The Performer has a 'Play school' attitude, demonstrating to camera.

The first stage in IVF is follicle stimulation.


Rubs dollies legs together, looks a bit sassy.

Typically, the ovaries are stimulated for the egg extraction procedure

using a follicle-stimulating hormone, Puregon. (Zoom in on box) Puregon

is made with recombinant gene technology, or combined genetic

materials. For instance this product is made using a base of hamster

hormone. This stops the follicles competing with each other and allows the

largest number of eggs possible to be harvested. Typically, FSH is injected

in your home 2-5 times a day for ten -fourteen days. Side effects can be

bruising and nausea.

SOUND CUE: SFX LIVE MIX (MF): #3 PBAD6 (FADE IN)

Indicates injecting the dolls tunmay with needle. Enacts sickness, as if she is going to gag.

One, two, three four five.

Follicle stimulation can increase the likelihood of Ovarian cancer and

rarely, but seriously, ovarian torsion can occur. This is an acute twisting

of the ovaries, which can be fatal. (Twist dolly)

If follicle stimulation is successful, anything from 1-20 eggs can be picked

up in a harvest.

Walks around the table, puts down small needle.

After the follicle stimulation, it's time to have eggs harvested in an Ovum

Pick Up, or OPU. This is stage 2. We'll move to the day surgery area.

Continues to sing playschool song while walking doll.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^^'

(Singing) /WC, 1,2,3 that's right...

Performer 'walks' the dolly to the bedroom/day surgery area. She moves the trolley with

needles etc. to be close to the bed. Performer sits down with the ChromoKnit Doll™ on

lap. She uses it as a puppet to enact the egg extraction. The performer is both operating

on the dolly and reflecting dolly's feelings.

Lays ChromoKnit Doll™ back on lap.

Scientist Persona

Sit back. Get comfortable. That's good!

The performer is speaking in a normal voice here, quite personally, as if she is telling a

story to the doll. Blurring between personas here.

You're in the waiting room in a gown. You're preparing for your OPU. A

lot of other couples are waiting as well; or a single woman with a friend,

perhaps a lesbian couple. You hear their low voices on either side of you.

In the next room the three fates are waiting to cut, spin and measure your

destiny. Three fates in the shape of nurse, anesthetist and head scientist.

Sits down and places dolly on lap. Enacts syringe. Places feet on small trolley.

Now you can go in for the procedure.

Lay back on the bed!

Time to put the feet up in stirrups.


First you have a pethadine injection.

You'll feel a little drowsy...

VIDEO CUE: CLOSE UP ON FACE

SOUND CUE: fCONT I SFX: LIVE MIX #3 HERRINGBONE (CRESC IDECRESC.)

Performer laughs spontaneously. Throws head back.

The lights are really bright!

Slowly adjusts and retums to focusing on next procedure.

Now you have the local anesthetic in the vaginal area, this might sting ...

VIDEO CUE: CLOSE UP ON DOLL

Injects ChromoKnit Dolly™ with knitting needle/syringe again in the vaginal area.

Performer responds with slight intake of breath, surprise.

Ooo, ouch...

Performer picks up knitting needle to enact 'Ultrasound probe'.

Now you have the ultrasound probe to 'pick up' the ovum. This has a long

needle in the centre, about thirty centimetres long. It goes through the

vagina, cervix, uterus and fallopian tube until it reaches the ovaries,

taking care not to pierce any blood vessels as it goes through.

Performer enacts insertion of knitting needle as 'Ultrasound Probe' in doll's vaginal area.


(Hold image for camera) Then the ulti-asoundprobe goes in and you're

looking at the ultrasound of the ovaries on the monitor, and you're

watching the needle harvests the eggs. There are long tubes coming from

the needle full of pink liquid, blood and fluid. We're looking for the egg...

looking for the egg...

Performer drinks from a glass of pink liquid, making gurgling and popping sounds.

SOUND CUE: fCONT I SFX: LIVE MJX#1 (BRIEF BUBRTF.S)

VIDEO CUE: CLOSE UP ON LIOUID AND STRAW

Makes a lot of bubbles at end. Bursts up for air, excited to have the egg.

There's the egg!

VIDEO CUE: CLOSE UP ON EGG

Picks up the golden wrapped Easter egg from pocket. Places in small plastic container.

It's handed to the scientist and she's placing it inside the sterile area.

She's putting her arms in through the covered gloves and she's

manipulating the egg with the pipette. She's washing the egg by pulling it

up a couple of times into the pipette and she's placing it in the Petri dish.

She's placing it under the microscope, attached to the TV monitor.

You see the egg on the screen like it's right in front of you. It's huge like a

rising sun, a big golden egg. It's a highly mediated experience. The egg is

20 cm on the screen, when in reality you can fit many onto a pinhead...

SOUND CUE: SFX: LIVE MIX KNITTING!MOSS PATTERN SOUNDTRACK


Images on screen here. Performer places golden Easter egg in small container,

TRANSITION

Performer tidies up the side table. Replaces cap on needle. Reads data on folder.

VIDEO CUE: CLOSE UP ON EGG IN CONTAINER

Retums to SCIENTIST PERSONA. Gets 'folder' containing sperm donor profiles from

the end of trolley.

Scientist persona.

If the egg extraction isn't successful, there are many possibilities for

buying an egg, if you move out of this country. Selling an egg in this

country is illegal, though you can give one away to a person or to science.

You can buy human eggs from a clinic in South Africa, Russia, Greece or

Spain. The prices range from $20,000 for the most expensive in South

Africa down to $5,000 in Russia. Interestingly, Russian eggs are normally

expensive.. .caviar.. .Faberge. In comparison human eggs in Russia are

cheap. I'm not sure if it's the exchange rate or because they're not so

popular. If you're keen to go on a holiday to any of the locations, you may

need to consider price and the politics of the country, as well as genetic

considerations.

IVF and donor egg procedures are becoming popular reproductive

choices in both the developed and developing world.

Alarmingly, in developing countries, thousands of women die every year

from illegal back yard abortions, due to US funding prohibitions on

Women's' Health Organizations which provide legal abortions.

Has a drink.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables * ^ ^

Sperm can also be purchased over the Internet, from the many

'Cryobank's' that exist. Typical donorproftles include the age, height,

sports, and academic interests. We have the BioHome Cryobank's profile

sheet here in case any of the students in the audience are interested. In

some cases, such as the Scandinavian Cryobank, aU donors are required

to be over a certain height, and to have blonde hair and blue eyes. This

sperm is sought out throughout the western world and can be ordered over

the Internet. This prompted a newspaper article titled 'The Vikings are

taking over the world'.

TRANSITION

Performer tidies up the side table. Replaces folder. Checks egg. Replaces cap on needle.

SOUND CUE: fCONT. I SFX: LIVE MIX (FADE OUT & "0" AFTER TINY STITCHES)

Moves to central chair. Sits down at KNITTING AREA. Reaches for knitting again.

Starts to cast on. Goes into STORYTELLER persona.

SOUND CUE: 3 TINY STITCHES (FADE IN)

VIDEO CUE: CLOSE UP ON KNITTING

LIGHTING CUE: BELOW FACE

STORY 2

Storyteller Persona

Where was I? Have you ever stayed up knitting, night after moonlit night? Have

you watched strange shapes appear out of the corners of your eyes, have you

heard noises or smeh strange smells? This is what started to happen to me. The

whole laboratory seemed to dance to a strange beat.

The wool curled around the needle and my arm, it snaked through the air and

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 1 ^ ^

twisted around my Petri dishes, scooping up the cells, forming shapes that I

didn't recognize. Tiny blobs which resembled the buds of limbs. A long chain

stitch like the glimmer of a spine. I cleared a comer of the bench and started to

assemble six jars, one for the buds of tiny hands, one for the blinks of the eyes,

one for the downy hair on my baby's head...

LOAD SOUND: #3 PBAD3

In the months that followed the frenzy continued. I no longer returned home and

every night I knitted. My child had begun to grow.

One night, I saw that my child was nearing completion. Hanging in the glass

vials were two small arms, two legs, a torso, a rather sweet face and bottom of

plump proportions.

I gathered all the limbs together in my arms and placed them lovingly on the

bench, ready to stitch the pieces together. I felt their trembling aliveness. All of

a sudden I had no doubts, no fears. I moved almost like a woman possessed. I

took the needle I used to assemble the pieces of my knitting. With nimble fingers

I pierced the skin with the needle and started to join the limbs to the torso, the

ears to the head, the head to the body and so on. I looked out of the window and

saw the sun rising.

SOUND CUE: fCONT I TINY STITCHES (CRESCENDO)

I placed what was in my arms on the ground, and there before me stood a little

child, quite perfect, with dark hair and eyes, immediately giggling and laughing

as it ran about the laboratory, chasing and hiding.

I only half heard the door open as my colleague entered the room.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^ -̂̂

"Cecilia, haven't you been home yet?" my workmate said, smiling. " What have

you knitted up this time?"

" Not knitted this time," I said, beaming, " look at my beautiful baby!"

Holds up knitted body and hold in front of face.

SOUND CUE: fCONT.l TINY STITCHES (FADEOUVSTOP)

SOUND CUE: 5 I'VE GOT LIMBS WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER (LOUD)

Sound space immediately becomes active. Performer starts to wind up wool, packs up the

space. Takes off the hat, gloves and lab coat to become STEPFORD PERSONA

(personal).

V/O Wished for Child:

I've got two legs, two arms, a head, two ears, two eyes, one blue, one

black... I've got some hair, ten toes, ten fingernails and a bottom.

(Giggles) It needs a bottom. (Giggles) What else will I put the nappy on?

(Sing song). I'm stitching her together. AH done! My baby is finished!

Becomes alert to audience, becomes STEPFORD PERSONA.

Takes the egg from the container and begins to unwrap it as she

introduces the Egg Transfer process. Unwraps it as she explains egg

implantation. Speaks to Camera. Standing at first.

VIDEO CUE: FOOTAGE OF FACE CLOSE UP. SCREEN 2

Stepford Persona.

If the extraction is successful, we move on to Step 3 of the IVF procedure.

Egg Transfer (FT). The egg goes off to the lab, and within four hours it

wiU be fertilized with donor sperm or your partner's sperm and if it


fertilizes it becomes a blastocyst, and within 2-3 days you can come back

for your egg ti-ansfer or ET. We'll go back into the day surgery area.

Sits on day surgery bed. Has curtain pulled, face to camera only. Eats the egg.

Once the egg is ti^ansferred to the uterus, it's a relatively simple procedure

with two more hormone injections. You'll know by the end of your cycle if

it's worked or not. (Pause) / really hate waiting. It gets harder every

month. I do things I never thought I'd do, inject myself with things I've

never heard of I don't know where they 're from. The line.. .what youftnd

acceptable to do with your own body, keeps changing. You don't want to

admit how desperate you are... how much you want a baby.

Picks up syringe, mimes pulling the curtains around. Retums to SCIENTIST PERSONA.

SOUND CUE: fCONT / SFX UVE MIX #3 HERRINGBONE (CRESCENDO)

As you can see, the procedure is quite an ordeal. I am going to give the

dolly some more pethadine; you can't come in for a minute. Would you

please wait outside? (Tums face to audience here)

(To Doll) You can relax now, it's all over...

SOUND CUE: fCONT. 1 SFX LIVE MIX #3 NORMAL (CRESCENDO)

Performer drops the doll and needle, leans on bed. Intimate personal movements here, in

the view of the video camera. She strokes the back of the neck and head with one hand,

soft, slow, detail here, tiny finger movements. Plays with hair. Intemal images: stroking

baby hair.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 11^

TRANSITION

When performer gets up she collects the doll and the needle, collects the lab coat from

the back of the chair, and puts it on. She slowly gathers that there is an audience stiU

present. Is still a bit dazed from the pethadine experience. Adjusts.

SOUND CUE: fCONT J SFX LIVE MIX (FADE OUT ON PD MASTER VOLUME)

Stepford Persona.

You're still here! Thanks so much for visiting, I hope you've enjoyed the

home hints I've been giving you and the demonstrations. I do have several

of the decorations for sale. In fact the whole house is for sale of course

except for my precious little Thumbelina. (Indicates to the audience the

laptop where they can leave interactive voice message.)

If you'd like to leave us a special message in the visitors' book, or record

a voice message, tell us what excited you and what frightens you about

Biotechnologies. It's right there in the 'chill out' lounge, on our web site.

If anyone would like to do a little plant DNA extraction, see me after the

show. And don't forget, ChromoKnit Doll™ is available after the

demonstration. Thanks once again for visiting!

SOUND CUE: 2 MARIGOLD STEPFORD (LOUD).

END


ORIGINAL BIOETHICAL FABLES

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^ ^ '

THE MAN WITH NO EAR

BY

CATHERINE FARGHER


THE MAN WITH NO EAR

Once there was a sad man who hved in a tall building. The tall building stood on a

hillside that was covered with all sorts of buildings, a forest of towers and turrets and

high-flying highways. The building he hved in had a flashing neon sign on top that said

'EON', while others had neons spehing 'PENTON' and AXIS' and names for sports-

shoes.

There was a reason why the man was sad, and that was because he had lost his ear. He

lost it a few years before in a fight with a bull terrier. To be fair, he had not chosen to

fight with the bull terrier, in fact the huh terrier had very much chosen to fight with him,

or his ear to be precise. If you know anything about bull terriers, you'll know that once

they bite something, they lock their jaws and hang on for dear life unless you hit them

fair and square between the eyes with a rolled up newspaper or a very strong jet of water

from a hose. Even then, sometimes they do not let go.

So it was with the sad man, for when the dog jumped up and bit him on the ear, the dog

did not let go and when they finally removed the dog, the ear, unfortunately, went with

him, locked between his tightly clenched teeth. As the dog ran down the road, the ear

between it's teeth, the sad man heard the echo of his wife's words, as she walked from

his house for the very last time months before, leaving him with his tiny daughter: "I

wish you'd listened to me Fritz. I told you one day I'd walk from this city and leave you

with the baby and you'd wish you had used those ears of yours."

With his ear missing, the man became sad. His littie daughter tried to comfort him, to

play jokes and make up games to see if he would smile. But no matter how hard she tried,

he did not smile and no matter how hard he tried, he could not imagine living life without

both his ears.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^ ^ 9

The sad man started to dream about having a new ear. One night he dreamt that an ear

grew like a leaf from a tree, but when he woke, there was the same seashell shaped

crevice as before. One night he dreamt that the dog bought his ear back, and it was sewn

on, but when he felt his face in the moming, his skin was smooth as a baby's backside.

When his dreams came to nothing, he started to scheme about ways of getting a new ear.

He thought of stealing one from a passer by, but then realised that it would just make him

happy, and another person sad. He thought about trying to buy an ear from someone who

didn't really want one. He thought of placing an advertisement. He had read in the paper

that in far off lands there were people who would sell their ears and even an eye or a foot

if he wanted one, but then he worried that he was adding to someone else's misery, and

so he forgot about that.

Finally he chanced upon an idea that he would try to grow an ear. He had recently read in

a newspaper, that people could grow new limbs and spinal chords and even bottoms, just

like their own, from the cells of their own belly button, or in his case, the stump where

his ear used to be. So he took to reading about just how and where this could be done,

and he discovered that he must visit a special laboratory in one of the other towers on the

hill.

The tower had a flashing sign that said 'EGG'. No more, no less, just EGG.

On the day he went to visit the Egg Corporation, he was both excited and nervous. The

young man on the phone had told him to expect an audience with a doctor, Dr Egg

himself

He caught the trolley bus and arrived at the tall tower, went through the automatic

opening doors and caught a large two-door lift to the thirteenth floor, and walked in to the

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^ '^^

foyer. This was decorated in a range of pink and apricot hues, with comfy chairs, sofas

and magazines to read.

He hardly had time to sit down when the young man behind the desk told him that Dr

Egg would see him now, and indicated another door for him to enter. Once inside, he saw

that Dr Egg looked not unlike the bull terrier that had bitten his ear. His face was large,

puffy and white as if he had not seen much daylight and his jaw was protruding

menacingly. This did not particularly put him at his ease.

When Doctor Egg heard what he wanted, he looked at him with his big, bull terrier eyes,

which softened for a moment and said: "I understand it must be a terrible predicament to

find oneself without an ear. For one thing it would let in the cold, and you would not be

able to feel it flap in the breeze. Not a happy situation, for which you have my utmost

sympathy."

At that point he mbbed his hands together gleefully, chuckled for a moment and mbbed

his tummy (which the sad man thought was rather strange behaviour). And then Dr Egg

said to him, "Look behind me and you will see that it is possible to do what you ask."

The sad man looked behind doctor Egg.and saw rows and rows of glass vials. The fluid in

the vials was a mixture of colours- red, blue, green and yellow. Hanging on strings in the

vials, were the beginning and ends of all sorts of body parts. There were noses and

fingers and whole hands, there were windpipes and spinal chords and just as the paper

had mentioned, a bottom. Some of them, including the bottom, glowed in the dark; some

of them had sprouted wings and claws and all sorts of animal scales. In fact a more varied

menagerie of body parts you would not find in a zoo.

"As you can see, an ear will be no trouble at all, no trouble at all!" barked Dr Egg.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^ ^ ̂

"When can you begin?" asked the sad man.

"That's a good question to ask..." remarked Doctor Egg, "I couldn't have asked better

myself" There is just one littie thing before I can begin..." he continued, having a littie

scratch.

"And what might that be?" asked the sad man.

"You must give me the thing that is most precious to you in the whole world." said Dr

Egg.

The sad man gasped. He said nothing at first because the first thing that spmng to mind

was indeed so precious to him that he could not possibly tell Dr Egg.

You see the precious thing that he thought of was the fine downy hair on his daughters'

head, just where it meets her neck. In fact ever since she had been a tiny child, the thing

that had made the sad man's heart soft with love, were her locks as soft as angel clouds

and her skin as soft to touch as the creamiest milk.

Of course he was not such a bad man as to imagine giving Dr Egg such a precious thing.

He tried very hard to think of something else that might be precious enough to bring Dr

Egg.

But Dr Egg, who looked more and more like the terrier, so much did his face puff and his

jaw protmde and his eyes bulge and his nostrils flare, jumped at the man and made his

thoughts stop there.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^ ^^

"I can see by the way you evade my eyes, that you have this very minute thought of your

most precious thing. And nothing other than that, which you know in your heart, will

allow me to create your new ear!" barked Dr Egg.

So the man, immediately and once and for all and vehemently said, "Then I will not have

a new ear, for there is no way upon this earth that you will be able to have that most

precious of things."

"Oh really?" said Dr Egg and he watched the sad man leave, knowing that all he needed

to do was sit and wait and he might one day retum.

The sad man went home to his tall building with the flashing sign. He played with his

daughter and combed her hair and swung her on the swings at the park, thinking this,

most certainly, would cure his need for an ear. But he became sadder than ever before.

He cried every time he bmshed her hair, or as he watched her swing in the park.

"What ails you Daddy?" she would say, stroking the seashell shape on the side of his face

where the ear no longer grew.

"It's nothing daughter. Keep on playing. There's nothing to be done." he would say,

sadly.

But the daughter was sensitive to these things and did not like to see her father cry, so she

asked him many times and soon didn't like to swing in the park at all. So you see, both of

them were miserable.

Just as Dr Egg had suspected, the thought of the ear would not disappear from the sad

man's mind. It was as if the seed of the idea had grown until it possessed his very mind

and even filled his dreams. So his sleep time and his waking time were filled with ears

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^̂ --̂

and cells and golden locks. The man took to watching when his daughter might have an

accident, just to see if some hak and skin might be mbbed off against a rock or a tree. He

thought if he asked nicely that she might agree to visit the hahdresser and some of her

locks would inevitably fall on the floor and he would put some in his pocket.

And that is exactiy what happened. The hakdresser snipped and snapped. The sad man

paced and watched - a hawk on the hunt for a mouse, until one split second the scissors

slipped and nicked and the things more precious to him than gold- a curled lock of his

daughters hair and a tiny fragment of her skin were indeed in his possession.

BUT STILL HE COULD NOT, WOULD NOT, VISIT DR EGG.

Then one morning, after a night of particularly tormented dreams, when he saw ears so

huge as to engulf him and hairs that threatened to strangle the very life from his body, he

fed his daughter breakfast, and took her to childcare. Then, like a man possessed, he

caught the trolley bus, holding only the small bag containing his precious things, and

went once more to the tower of EGG CORP, catching the lift to the thirteenth floor.

"We thought we might see you again," said the young man behind the reception desk

when he arrived in the apricot coloured reception area. "Dr Egg will see you now."

The sad man, shaking and spluttering stepped into Dr Egg's laboratory.

"Do you have the thing most precious to you in the whole world?" Dr Egg asked when he

saw the sad man enter. For he had known all along that the sad man would retum.

At first the sad man said nothing, so guilty and so shameful he felt.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ' ^^

"So you are happy without your ear, you have just visited for a chat?" said Dr Egg, "you

have had no bad dreams and your life is content?" he continued.

At this point the man broke down. He lay on the ground and sobbed and sobbed. So great

as his pain that he sobbed for five whole minutes, after which time Dr Egg encouraged

him to get up and dabbed his red eyes with a large used checked handkerchief

Without saying anything, he handed Dr Egg the bag and watched nervously as Dr Egg

opened it. Once again Dr Egg looked like a terrier and his eyes bulged, his nostrils flared

and so on. You know the drill.

"Oh this is very good", he said, flaring his nostrils.

"It couldn't be better", he added, his eyes bulging a littie more.

Dr Egg knew that he held the things that were more precious than gold to a father, his

own beloved daughters' hair and skin.

"What will you do with it?" asked the sad man. "No harm must come to her, on that I

insist."

"Oh nothing will happen to your daughter at home, of that I can assure you." For the first

time the sad man felt a littie bit of hope, that Dr Egg might not be such a bad egg after all.

"I have your permission to take the precious things?" Said Dr Egg.

"Only if I have your written..." started the sad man.


"Do you want your ear or not?" barked Dr Egg. The sad man could do nothing but nod.

Dr Egg tumed his back on the sad man and got to work. He roUed up his sleeves, washed

his hands, put on a blue surgical gown and started to whistie a little tune. He picked out

some tweezers from the sterilizing unit and picked up a piece of fluffy golden hah. Then

he cut and ground the hair, added a drop of this and a drop of that, whirled it in a little

machine and finally suspended it in some coloured solution in a new jar that stood on the

incubator shelves along side the hands and the half-grown glow in the dark bottom.

Before the sad man's very eyes, he watched as the lock of hair started to grow, fust into

one finger, then a whole hand and an arm and so on, until he saw the entire body of his

daughter grow before him. The sad man gasped, felt his stomach rise to his throat as if his

whole breakfast was going to heave out there and then. He could swear that the body he

saw in the glass vial was in fact the daughter he had placed in child-care that very

moming.

"But how, how..." stammered the sad man.

"You wanted an ear that resembled your own. What better than a clone of your very own

daughters ear? It will certainly be compatible with your own blood group, and you are

unlikely to reject it", said Dr Egg rubbing his hands with glee.

"You mean you wih have to cut the ear from my daughters body?"

"It is not your real daughter, she is a clone," insisted Dr Egg.

"But she is alive isn't she?" the sad man insisted.


"Absolutely my dear man, how do you think she is growing at all?"

h was tme that as he watched, the small girl in the vial was growing older and older until

he could see her at fifteen years old, and now at nineteen and twenty -five and so on.

"I will stop her when she reaches your approximate age, 45, am I correct?" asked Dr Egg.

"42 actually," stammered sad man "But, you can't possibly...."

"What? Can't cut off her ear? What do you think we've grown her for...and is there

anything else you want at the same time? A new finger perhaps, a knee joint?" again Dr

Egg was snuffling like a dog.

The sad man had to think quickly. In fact, all sadness seemed to have left him and he was

very decisive indeed. He couldn't let any harm come to this daughter, even though she

wasn't the daughter he left this moming. So while Dr Egg had his back tumed, the sad

man grabbed one of the smaller vials, the one with the glow-in -the -dark bottom in it,

and crashed it to the ground. As soon as Dr Egg heard the crash, he tumed around and

screamed at the top of his lungs, "My bottom, my beautiful glow-in-the-dark bottom!"

Immediately he was down on his knees and trying to pick up the pieces, of his once

beautiful, now bloody glow-in-the-dark bottom. The sad man thought quickly again and

grabbed a number of tubes and other implements from the sterilizing machine, tying Dr

Egg's hands behind his back. Although Dr Egg was much bigger than him, the now not-

so-sad man seemed to have develop a great deal of strength from his resolve.../ze must

rescue his daughter.

197 Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^ •^'

So, without a moment to lose, he stood up on the shelf on which the large vial containing

his daughter stood, and reached his hands down for her to take hold of He pulled and

pulled with all his might until, out of the water, came his fuUy formed, if somewhat

rapidly aged, second daughter.

"Quick daughter, we must mn like the wind!" the not-so-sad man whispered. So the two

of them sped out the door, past the young man at reception, who was busy reading a

magazine with the radio tumed up very loud, which explains his lack of intervention, then

on to the trolley bus, just in time to pick up his smallest daughter from childcare.

His little daughter was surprised and excited to meet her new sister.

"But Daddy, why did I never know I had a sister, where has she come from?" said his

daughter filled once again with glee.

The not-so-sad man said, "One day my angel, I will tell you the story of where your sister

came from."

So they have all lived happily in the tall building with the 'EON' sign, on the hill with the

other tall buildings and flying highways, the not-so-sad one-eared man, and his two

identical, though differentiy aged, daughters.

1 28 Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables

Corn Baby


Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^^"

CORN BABY

There was once a very poor man and his wife who hved a little way from the town, and

both of them worked as com farmers. They grew enough food for themselves, and each

year they grew a crop of com for flour. Whatever was left over, they would take to sell at

the market, and that was the way that it had been for centuries.

The farmers' names were Tina and Denis and they dearly wanted a baby, but they had not

been lucky enough to fall pregnant. They both worked very long hours in the fields. This

meant that Denis had become very thin and he grew tall and straight like a beanpole. Tina

on the other hand had become very fond of com fritters, so she had grown quite large and

whenever she got excited, or angry, she would wobble like jelly on a plate.

One day when Tina was taking some com to the market, she saw a large four wheel drive

approaching theh farm. The windows of the car were shaded, so she couldn't see the

driver clearly, although he looked very tall. Above the four wheel drive lurked some

heavy grey clouds that mmbled and rolled and spluttered and spat. Tina felt her jellyrolls

quiver a little, but she had work to do, so off she went to market. When she got there she

laid out her corm cobs and seeds. Out of the comer of her eye, she saw the tall man from

the car. This time she could see him clearly. He was wearing a smart pair of moleskin

pants, a casual but smart shirt and tie, and an akubra hat, with some dark sunglasses.

They were so dark she could not see his eyes at all. As he approached she saw that his

ears were large and slightiy yellow in colour, with tufts of hair poking up from the top.

Around him, like a scent that a dingo might pick up, was a strange smell of bee pollen.

The man, we will call him Dr Mole, looked out of place amongst the other customers, the

mothers and babies, and an old man in an electric wheelchair. He pushed passed them

roughly and asked if he could buy a bag of her com. She could not refuse a customer, so

she took his money. When she tried to see behind his glasses, she felt a wobble in her

jelly rohs again, because she wasn't sure if there were eyes there at all. Then he left, just

as quickly, leaving the smell of bee pollen in the air.


Tina had a very busy day, and by the time she packed up to go, she had forgotten aU

about the man in the dark glasses with the hah on his ears.

Time passed on the small farm a littie outside the town. The sun rose and set and still

there was no baby bom to the man and his wife. Then one winter's day, when they were

sitting at the kitchen table, they heard a knock at the door, and Tina rose to open it.

"I wonder who this might be," she said to no one in particular.

WTien she opened the door, she let out a cry and quickly closed it again. On the doorstep

stood the tall man, whose name, incidentally, was Dr Mole.

"What's the matter?" asked Denis, who had never seen Dr Mole before.

Tina had forgotten to tell him about the man in the market. She once again noticed Dr

Mole's peculiar smell, like a chook that has been out in the rain.

"It's the man who bought some com and beans from our stall," she said.

"Well, let him in," said Denis "Never shut the door in the face of a customer."

Tina opened the door and Dr Mole entered and sat at the table with them.

"I suppose you're wondering why I came?" said Dr Mole, playing with the hairs on his

large yellow ears.

Dennis and Tina nodded.

"Please, take off your glasses, and your coat," said Dennis, but the man made no attempt

to do either. Instead, he took from the pocket of his tweed coat what looked like the very

same bag of com he had bought at the market.


"Was there something wrong with our seeds?" asked Tina, nervously.

"On the contrary," insisted Dr Mole, "They are very fine seeds, and this is why I've come

to talk to you"

Tina and Denis listened, wondering why Dr Mole wouldn't take off his dark glasses, even

though he was inside and no sun was shining, but too polite to ask. Denis also noticed the

slight smell of bird feathers in the air.

"Would you like to cam a httle extra income?" said Dr Mole.

They both nodded, because no one as poor as they were would disagree.

"And do you want to have a child one day?" he added.

They nodded again, though the question seemed a little strange.

"I have a proposition to make to you," said Dr Mole, who now seemed to emit another

strange aroma, which Tina recognised was the smell of ants on a hot day.

"I am the head of Mole Corporation, and the com that you sold me has been treated so it

has special properties. No weeds will grow around it, no birds will attack it, and it will

grow bigger and more abundantly than any com you have ever seen. I would like you to

grow the crop from this com, to harvest it and retum every seed to me, and in remrn, you

will earn three times the price you would normally get from the market."

Tina and Denis looked at each other. This seemed to be a good proposition, and they

would be silly to look such a gift horse in the mouth.


"Just one more thing," said Dr Mole, a little more quietly than before. "If a baby is bom

to you within a year from the time you plant the seeds, I want you to bring them to my

laboratory, on the day it tums seven." This being said, he pulled out a card, which he laid

on the table.

"Do you agree?"

"We agree!" Denis jumped to his feet, before his wife had a chance to say anything,

though she had visibly begun to wobble. At that, Dr Mole stood up and shook both then-

hands, then went through the door, leaving a faint smell of fish tails in the ah.

"Why did you say yes Denis?" Tina's rolls were bobbing up and down now. She was

very angry.

" What harm can come from planting a bag of seed?" Denis stood firm in his skinny

beanpole way, so no amount of wobbling could sway him.

"But what if we have a child within one year?" said Tina, to which Denis replied, "Let's

worry about the future when it happens" This put a stop to all further discussion, even

though Tina had an uncomfortable twinge in her jelly rolls.

Before many weeks had passed, spring came, warming the ground. They planted the bag

of com seed, which grew very well indeed. And just as the doctor had said, something

about it was strangely different to any com they had ever grown. No weeds grew up, no

birds attacked the husks, and no animals - dogs, pigs, snakes, bees, wombats or

cockatoos came anywhere near the paddock. When the com ripened, it was indeed the

fattest and the largest com that either of them had ever seen. Every day the man had to

resist a very strong temptation to pull some from the stems and taste them. Every time he

was tempted, the corn seemed to sway a littie and murmur the words Dr Mole had said,

"You must deliver every seed." So he resisted.


Seeds, as you wiU all know, are not ordinary objects like chaks or tables. They are

special because they can become something else. Inside each seed is locked the memory

of the mother or father plant, and the seed will grow into a plant just like the one before

it. Seeds are abit like a babushka doll, which has littie bodies inside it.

Sometimes, if a bee or a butterfly flies into the flower with the pollen from another plant,

then the seed will become a new plant altogether, a mixture or hybrid. The memory of the

plant is contained in a special molecule, in the shape of a helix, called DNA. What shape

is a helix? I hear you ask. To that I can only say that if you look under a microscope, you

will see two long strands, like long plaits or skipping ropes that twkl around each other in

a tight spiral staircase, and are joined by lots of little steps.

Clever scientists, who know just how special and powerful seeds can be, have decided

that if bees can carry pollen from one plant to another, then so can they. They have cut

and pasted bits of DNA from other plants or creatures in just the same way you would cut

and paste a picture. If they use a bit of fish DNA, the new plant may thrive in water, or

scare off birds using a funny smell. Scientists can create hybrids that never before

existed. That is why Dr Mole was so careful about his seed, as he was never quite sure

what kind of com it would grow into.

The summer progressed and it was almost time to harvest. Sometimes when Denis

worked in the corn-paddock he talked to himself or sang a jingle or two. At those times it

seemed as if the ears of com leaned towards him just a little, listening. And if he was

tempted to eat an ear of com, he still heard them murmur," Deliver every seed". Maybe it

was just the breeze playing tricks on him.

Then one day, when it was beautifully sunny and the sky was blue and the com was

ripening into juicy fat cobs, Denis could no longer resist the temptation to eat just one.

Who knows what made him give in? Perhaps it was the warmth that seeped through his

hat and made his head swim. Perhaps it was the slightly dizzy feeling a busy worker gets

before lunch, but he momentarily forgot his promise and before he knew it he had pulled


down a cob and shucked back the outer leaves and taken a huge bite of the sweet, juicy

cob.

As soon as he took the bite he came to his senses. "What have I done?" he said out loud,

"I promised I wouldn't eat a single seed." The com plants seemed to reach in and listen to

his every word. He stuffed the rest of the cob in the pocket of his overalls, and decided to

go inside and see his wife. But no sooner did he start for home, than a huge black cloud

rolled across the sky and the rain began, making him feel very wet and miserable. So for

a while, he had to lie under the com and wait, and while he waited he fell asleep and

started to dream. He dreamt that his wife was Queen of all the animals and that she gave

bkth to a little girl with hak the colour of com.

When he woke from this reverie the storm cloud had passed and the sun was out again -

so he went in to see his wife. Finding that she was at home on this beautiful sunny

afternoon and he had no more work to do, they fell to passionate embraces, until one

thing led to another and he forgot all about eating the com. Soon, in three weeks to be

exact, Tina had some very good news to tell her husband.

"I'm pregnant!" she said and they both started to jump for joy and do a little dance about

the house. Tina twirled and wobbled and her husband skipped stiffly and jumped up and

down, as a beanpole might do. In nine months time, or forty weeks to be exact, their little

baby girl was bom. Her hair was so golden and silky, just like the ears of com, that they

named her 'Cornelia'. They began to look after the baby and enjoy her little ways. Her

skin was soft and smelled sweet as young com and her mother often remarked, "I could

just eat her!" She was the same as any child, except that she loved nothing better than to

play with the ants and the bees and birds and watch the fishes in the duck pond.

Soon after that time they harvested all the com, sent it to Dr Mole and received three

times the price for the seed. Though he knew it was wrong, Denis saved a tiny bag of the

seed that was left from the 'special cob' he had eaten before Comelia was bom as a

souvenir. He hid this in a secret place in the kitchen.


Then a strange thing happened. Every time the family tried to grow their own seed, it

withered and died. They were forced to go to the market to buy more seed. Everywhere

they looked, they could only find seed from Mole Corporation. The seed had this logo on

the packets, 'Mole Corporation - Our ars Are Peeled'. So, instead of being well off, as Dr

Mole had suggested, they seemed to grow poorer and poorer. This was made doubly

difficult, as now they had a little child to support.

All the farmers around them seemed to be in a similar predicament. There were meetings

held in the area every week. Some wanted to stop using Mole Corporation seed, but when

they did, they found that thek crops withered and died. Others found that if they

complained to Mole Corporation, strange looking men furry with yellow ears and yellow

uniforms would come to thek farms and threaten to steal their pigs or do nasty tricks to

keep them quiet. What was to be done?

Tina and Denis were so worried about feeding Comelia, they forgot all about the promise

they had made to Dr Mole. Meanwhile Comelia grew into a beautiful young girl, and ate

whatever she could, and still loved spending time with birds and animals, especially her

pet mouse, which she kept in a cardboard box.

They were taken by surprise when one day, shortly before Comelia's seventh birthday, a

letter arrived in a crisp official envelope. On the front it said 'Mole Corporation - Our

ears are peeled - Com Seed for the world: London, Washington, Timbuktu, Thailand'.

Accompanying this was a logo, a picture of a giant ear of com. On the back of the

envelope was the name of the same man that visited them, Dr Mole.

Dear Tina and Denis (the letter read)

I hope you have not forgotten our agreement. I believe you

now have a daughter, and I would be very happy if you

would bring her to my laboratory at the Mole Corporation


industiial complex on the day before her 7'" bkthday. In

anticipation.

Yours sincerely

Dr R Mole

Tina started to shake immediately, grabbed the letter and threw it in the fire.

"That bloody Dr Mole, what right has he got to our Comeha!" she cried, wobbling

furiously.

Denis on the other hand stood very straight. He grabbed the special bag of com from the

secret hiding place in the kitchen and placed it on the table.

Meanwhile, no one was watching Comelia, who had no idea what the trouble was.

Although she listened carefully to every word that was said, she just kept playing with

her pet mouse in its shoebox.

After they had put Comelia to bed, Denis and Tina sat on the couch, saying very little at

all. After a while, Tina spoke.

"We must send her away," she said.

"But she's only 7 years old!" replied Denis.

"Who knows what this Dr Mole has planned for her? I told you this would happen, and

did you listen?"

Denis had no reply to that. "Let's sleep on it and decide in the moming." They agreed,

and went off to bed.


Tina and Denis shuffled off to bed, all the time Tina wobbling and muttering "My

beautiful Comelia and that Hairy Dr Mole!"

They did not count on their daughter Comelia's clevemess. She had heard their talk and

grew very nervous about being sent away with someone her parents clearly did not like.

Rather than c'ause her parents any trouble, she thought she would mn away herself for a

few days, until the trouble had passed. She filled a small backpack with clothes, carefully

placed her mouse in her pocket and packed the small bag of com she found on the table.

"I'm not sure what these are for" she said to her mouse. "But they look useful".

Comelia set off, just as dawn was breaking with a flaming red sky, with her mouse in her

pocket, her backpack of clothes and her bags of seed.

She walked for a long time, for a whole day in fact. When it became dark, she looked for

a place to camp. "I'd better build a fire," she thought, and reahsing she had only the com

to eat, she decided to cook up a littie stew, the way she'd seen her father do it. You see at

seven years old, Comelia knew some basic skills for survival. That's what a hard farm

life teaches you.

She ate a pleasant meal and shared some with her mouse. Then she lay down to sleep. In

the night she had some dreams (which often happens when you eat a stew) and in this

dream she was walking with some animals and they were calling out to her, "Comelia,

Comelia, be careful dear Comelia."

When she woke the next moming her mouse was quick to greet her.

"Good morning Comelia," said her mouse and she said good moming back. She realised

that this was very strange, but she had no time to ponder this, as there was a huge army of

ants marching towards her. At first she was scared, until she heard one, who appeared to


be thek leader say, "The Queen is sick, if we could just take her some of this com stew,

she will get better."

Comelia thought it was a httle strange that the ants were talking to her, but very quickly

got used to it.

"Of course your Queen can have some com soup," she said. "I hope she gets better," she

added politely.

"Thank you for your generosity," said the main ant. "If ever you need our help, think of

us, and we will be there.. .we have nests all over the country."

The ants left, taking the soup with them in neat little parcels. Comelia got up, packed her

things, including the few remaining com seeds and placed her mouse in her top pocket,

so they could chat along the way.

"You're very good at helping," said the mouse, a trifle put out.

"Thank you, I do try," said Comelia, quite precociously, and off they went.

Before long, they came across some beautiful butterflies. They had been poisoned from

pesticides that they had sipped in nectar. These plants grew from Mole Corporation

seeds, with thek familiar logo, the ear of com.

"Please help us," implored the butterflies. "Take our eggs and place them further away

from these poisoned plants, so they have a chance of hatching."

"Of course we will," said Cornelia, and she gathered up the butterfly eggs that were stuck

on some leaves, and prepared to carry them off Before they left, she heard one butterfly

say, "You have been very thoughtful littie gkl- if there is anything you need us to help

you with, don't hesitate to bring us to mind, and we will come to you!"


Comelia couldn't think what a butterfly could do, but she thanked them anyway and they

went on thek way.

"I do wish I could be a bit more useful," said the mouse, in a wistful way.

"Don't worry, there is sure to be something you can do," said Comelia.

When they had gone a littie further, she heard some very screechy voices coming from

the fields.

"Craark! Please free us! Craark!"

When they looked around, Comelia and the mouse saw some parrots, trapped in a net,

which had been set by a farmer to protect the Mole Corporation land.

"Please help us," cried the pink and grey parrots, commonly called Galahs, and they beat

their wings helplessly. Comelia walked through the paddock until she reached the Galahs

and with great care unwound the netting from their feet and wings. The Galah's were so

relieved to be free, they prepared to fly off straight away. Before they did, however, one

of them swooped down close to Comelia and her mouse and screeched, "Craaark, we are

all so grateful, if you ever need us, for anything at all, just bring us to mind!" Then off

they flew.

"You did the right thing helping those parrots" squeaked the mouse, and gave her hand a

little nibble. "I wish I was as helpful as you"

"That's enough now, your time will come," said Comelia, a bit sick of the mouse's

remarks.


The mouse just sat quietly in her pocket, thinking to himself He had only mentioned

helping because every creature, in its own way, wants to be useful to other creattires and

hopes that one day that help will be retumed when they might need it most.

Just at that moment, Comelia heard a sound behind her. It was a large black four-wheel

drive and out of it stepped a very strange creature indeed. The thing had long yellow

elfen ears, which had hairy tufts at the top, and wore a yellow boiler suit with dark

glasses. She noticed it also had the features of a fmit bat, which, combined with yellow

furry ears, looked even more strange. Attached to the large yellow ears was a head set, to

which it listened intently. From the headphone came a strange sound indeed, the sound of

someone chanting a poem.

"Comelia, our little dear,

Comelia, please bring her here"

The yellow creature replied, "Right away Dr Mole". Comelia realised at once that this

was a helper of Dr Mole, the man her mother had been so upset about. She started to

shake in her Wellington boots and it was only the warmth of the little mouse in her

pocket that gave her courage.

"Are you the daughter of Tina and Denis?" Dr Mole's yellow helper asked.

"Yes I am" she replied, with bravado.

"Have you seen this letter?" he asked, holding up the letter that she had seen on her

mother and father's table.

"Yes I have", she replied.


"And are these your parents?" said the helper and with a flourish he tumed a knob on the

headphones, which amplified some sounds which she recognised as her parents voices

screaming for help.

"That is what happens to people who do not keep thek promises littie gkl", said Dr

Mole's fmit bat helper.

Comeha started to cry and ran towards the sounds of Tina and Denis's voices, screaming,

"Let them go, you nasty...." Her cries were quickly muffled however, as she ran into a

large net that the long eared helper produced from behind his back and was immediately

placed in the back of the car. Her hands were bound and her eyes were blindfolded. Then

the fmit bat got in the front seat, started the engine and began to drive.

They drove for a very long time. They drove in straight lines. They drove in circles. They

drove through the day and then through the night. They drove through storms and they

drove through sunny patches. (The only way Comelia knew this was the feeling of cold

or warm on her skin, she couldn't see anything).

Finally they arrived at a triangle of large buildings in the middle of some fields, with

generators and all sorts of pipes and ducts on the outside. By this time the little mouse,

looking for ways to help, had very kindly loosened her bhndfold and pushed it up a little,

so she was able to peek form undemeath.

When she saw how huge this complex was, she thought it seemed very different from her

own littie farm on the edge of the city.

Between this triangle of buildings, Comelia noticed there were three large greenhouses.

She saw that the first greenhouse contained a rice paddy, just as she had seen in picture

books, with rain drizzling from the roof The second one had rows and rows of com

plants, with sunny yellow lights shining down on them, and the third one contained a

crop of wild winter wheat and this greenhouse was very cold indeed.


When they arrived at thek destination, a group of helpers with yellow ears and hairy mfts

were waiting for her. Each one of them had a headset on that they hstened to intentiy.

They mshed around and seemed very busy indeed. She noticed that some of the helpers

looked a littie like possums, some like dingoes or kangaroos, while others had the distinct

facial features of fmit bats. It was as if their ears and paws and noses had been mixed

together in a pot and ladehed out any which way. She wondered if they were a hybrid

mix, a bit like the Mole Corporation com seeds.

As soon as the car puhed up, Comelia replaced her blindfold and, of course, pretended

that she had seen nothing. Then she heard a voice over the helpers headsets say, "Take

her to the cage straight away." She thought this must be Dr Mole's voice, though he was

nowhere to be seen.

Suddenly she felt a hand grab her shoulder and push her, quite roughly, up some steps

and through a door, down a corridor and in through the door of a cage. When they

removed her blindfold, she saw it was made entkely of comcobs. There was only one

window, which was far too high for her to reach. Before she and her mouse could explore

anything at all, Dr Mole's fmit-bat helper appeared at the doorway, wearing, as always,

his dark sunglasses.

"Please come with me," he said stemly, and as she moved towards him, she realised it as

not the thing talking, but the voice from the headset, Dr Mole himself. The creature gazed

at her golden hair (the colour of golden corn), and her brown skin (the colour of freshly

ploughed earth) and she heard the voice say, "Hmmm, very interesting, very interesting

indeed."

You see Dr Mole suspected that Comelia had special powers because she was bom so

soon after the com crop grew at her parent's farm. His intention was to get his hybrid

helper to do some very special tests and to see just what powers she had.


"You must be bored Comeha - do you mind if I call you Comelia?" said the voice, for

the fu:st time trying to be pleasant. And before she replied it said, "I thought I would take

you somewhere where you can play a game. Would you like that?"

Comelia wasn't sure if she feh excited or scared about this and wondered what possible

game the fmit bat creature and Dr Mole, who seemed such a nasty fellows, would want

her to play. Of course the voice didn't wait for her reply before taking her to a laboratoiy,

where there were more cages.

In the cages, she saw a range of interesting looking creatures, some fish the colour of

green peas, a piglet the colour of tomatoes (and some tomatoes the colour of piglets), and

ants and butterflies and so on. When she tried to go and look at the dear littie piggy, as

any curious seven year old would do, the elf stopped her abmptiy and pushed her into a

small cage. Then he went away for a while. She was becoming very nervous, as this was

not the kind of game she was used to playing.

"I'm very scared," she whispered to her mouse, which quickly popped his head out of her

pocket. "I'll try to help, really I will!" he muttered desperately, then popped it down

again as the fmitbat approached. In his hands the helper carried a handful of black sticky

stuff, and when he placed it in the cage, it became a swarm of ants.

Inside the cage, Comelia could hear what the ants were saying, "What do they think

they're doing?" said one of the ants, "Imprisoning those poor farmers in greenhouses, and

listening to them through ears of com? What will they think of next? If only we could get

out of here to help!"

Comelia pretended she couldn't hear a thing, and looked bored, so the fmit bat would

suspect nothing. But inside she felt a warm glow of excitement, when she realised that

her parents were somewhere nearby.


"Did you hear that?" said Comelia excitedly to her mouse. "The ears of com are used as

transmitters! That's why everyone wears headphones!"

"But how does that help us find your parents?" said the little mouse.

"We'll figure out something!" insisted Comeha.

Batty retumed suddenly and this time he was carrying a bag, which was pulsating in a

very skange manner indeed. When he placed them in the middle of Comeha's cage and

indicated that she open it, she wasn't sure what it would contain. She opened it anyway

and out flew a host of beautiful monarch butterflies. They were no ordinary butterflies

though, their wings were blue and yellow and they had strange furry bodies, a bit like

bees.

"Fancy that," one of the beautiful butterflies was saying as it beat its wings, "This littie

girl doesn't know that her mother is in the next greenhouse, the field of wheat where we

laid our eggs, but we are trapped here, there's nothing we can do!"

Immediately Comelia knew her parents were close by, and she felt a tingle of happiness,

which she was most careful to disguise from the prying eyes of the fmit bat helper.

"Anything unusual about the butterflies? "Asked Batty, searching for a glimpse of

interest from his large specimen.

"Nothing that I can hear, I mean see," said Comelia and she just twiddled her thumbs and

drew with her fingers on the ground.

Batty looked very disappointed again.

"This should do the trick," the voice said and brought in two large galah's and placed

them in the cage.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ] 45

"Craark!" they squawked "This is the same little gkl the fmitbats talked about, whose

father is trapped in the next greenhouse, the one where the rice grows, Craark! If only we

were free!"

Comelia said nothing, but remembered what all these animals had said.

Seeing that his experiments were useless. Batty pulled Comelia from the cage and put her

blindfold on again and pushed her back in the com cage. Then she heard the key in the

lock.

Immediately the little mouse sprang from her pocket and asked her what she had heard.

She told the mouse everything she had heard from the galahs, the ants and the butterflies.

All the animals had given her clues. The mouse was overjoyed.

"But what shall we do now?" Comelia said with a sigh.

"I wish I could help," said the mouse, feeling low again and they each feh into a reverie,

where they pondered this problem. Once again the mouse's mind drifted to how he might

help the situation, and Comelia rememebered the ants, butterflies and cockatoos she had

met on her travels.

As soon as she thought of these creatures, she heard a sound like thunder approaching,

which was in fact hundreds the tiny voices. Suddenly, bursting through the window of her

cage, came hoards of butterflies, ants and a screeching flock of galah's.

"You called?" mumbled the ants.

"1 believe you needed us?" flapped the butterflies.

"What is it this time?" squawked the never very polite galahs.


Comelia told them all the story of her parents' imprisonment and how she feared she

would never see them again. Then she told them about the ants, butterflies and galahs

trapped in the laboratories.

"Leave the rice house to us!" exclaimed the ants, mbbing thek little legs with glee and

scurrying off.

"We'll fly straight to the wheat field," said the leader of the monarch butterflies and

indicating with her beautiful orange wing, she dkected her flock out of the window.

Finally the Galah's screeched "No time like the present, Craark!" and set to work

devouring the com cage she was in.

In no time at all, she and the mouse were free, and before she knew it the birds picked her

and her little mouse up and flew them towards the greenhouses she had seen earlier.

Comelia couldn't thank the cockatoos enough, but they quickly flew off saying, "we

want to find our friends that are stuck in the cages!"

"Be careful of the fmit bats!" said Comelia, but off they flew. No sooner had she

mentioned their names, than who should appear but a whole army of yellow fmitbats,

possum dingoes and wombats, some with glow in the dark ears or tails, all with their

transmitters blaring.

"What do you think you're doing?" Shouted the largest fmitbat, as he approached, though

it sounded more like, "Wha oo nu fin oo are oing?" as he was a long way away from

them.

The mouse had not been very useful up to this point, in fact he couldn't quite

comprehend how Comelia had had managed to coordinate such a dazzling rescue

operation with a team of butterflies, ants and cockatoos, let alone talk each of their


languages. But now, faced with a real threat, he thought quickly and remembered that

Comelia had a few com seeds left, the com with special powers.

"Comelia, do you still have the com seeds?" he asked, excitedly.

Comelia dragged the remaining com seeds from her pocket and gave them to him.

Quickly, intuitively, he popped a com seed on his tail and catapulted it towards the

motley hybrid army.

Immediately the com started to spring up around them, sprouting huge husky hairy ears

as it grew, twkling and curling and creating a lattice that was so dense, you could barely

even hear thek voices as they shouted. The comstaUc kept growing up and up as far as the

eye could see. As the ears grew out to the side the seeds popped, revealing all sorts of

small animals and not so small animals - cows and pigs and birds and fish, suspended

like Christmas decorations from the giant comstalk.

Comelia and her pet mouse stared up at the amazing com ear, with its bountiful harvest.

"Don't come up here!" a cow, suspended from a tendril, called out.

"There's something at the top of this comstalk that you won't want to meet," cried a pig.

Just as the pig spoke, which of course only Comelia could hear, they heard a slight

sawing sound and realised that the hybrid army was managing to break free of their

husky prison and would soon be upon them. So quicker than you can say 'com fritters',

the mouse cried, "There's nowhere to go but up!" and they started to climb, passing the

cows and pigs and fish on the way.

Once they reached the top, which was a long way up and enough to make the mouse

very, very dizzy when he looked down, they came to a huge door, with a large sign in

several different languages reading:


"No Entry - Seed Counting Room - by order Mole Corporation"

"Verboten - plantz bier ...."

"N'Entrez Pas! Chambre des plantes"

Of course that didn't stop Comelia and her mouse from wanting to look behind the door.

But the door, unlike those doors of olden times which might have had a large keyhole, or

a chink between wooden planks, was in fact a firm double metal door, with a vacuum

seal, a coded lock and a security camera and television screen above it. They were

stumped.

Comelia felt the excited mouse jumping in her pocket, holding his breath with

anticipation.

"This is where I can help, I can finally DO something" enthused the mouse "See how

small I am, and see what a giant door this is? Watch this!"

Comelia placed the mouse on the floor and lo and behold he flitted up the door until he

reached the coded lock. He carefully plucked a whisker from his snout with barely an

'ouch', then he gracefully slipped it behind the hefty coded lock. With a tweek here and a

twiddle there, the door soon creaked open a tiny bit and the mouse and Comelia slipped

through the crack before k closed behind them again.

There, sitting alone at a huge, long table sat a very large, very fat man indeed. He wore a

huge moleskin suit and had furry yellow ears and wore dark glasses. An incredible odour

filled the room -the smell of wet chicken feathers, bee pollen and mashed tumip, which

all blended together to make such an awful pong! The fat creature sniffed the ak as if he

had detected something in the room and muttered to himself.


"Do I smell a smell

Or a girl or a mouse?

Who's broken in

To my giant seed house?"

He chuckled to himself, enjoying his song. He lifted the glasses to look around and

Comelia saw he had no eyes at all, just dents where eyes should be which made him look

a lot like a mole she had seen on the farm. Comelia realised that this was Dr Mole, but he

was bigger and fatter than even she could have imagined!

In front of him on the table lay tens, hundreds, no thousands of piles of seeds. Seeds,

seeds and more seeds. Black seeds, yellow seeds, red seeds, brown seeds, purple seeds,

orange seeds, little seeds, big seeds, round seeds, oval seeds, spiky seeds, smooth seeds -

you can't begin to imagine how many sorts of seeds Dr Mole had in front of him.

Behind him, on the wall, was a map, with all the countries of the world on it. In each

country there were tiny flags with pictures of the seeds on them.

Dr Mole continued to count the seeds into the piles, and as he counted he chatted to

himself.

"My seeds, my seeds, my beautiful seeds!

Seeds for life and seeds for need!

I have seeds for every plant in the world!

No farmer can live without Dr Mole's gold!

Dr Mole began to sniff the air again. He lifted his large nose with its large hairy nostrils

and sniffed, snorted and breathed deeply.

"Do I smell a smell or a giri ora mouse?" he looked around him and his great nose and

eyeless sockets tumed towards the mouse and Comelia.


The mouse knew at this moment that his time had come. This was the greatest moment,

right now. It was now or never. There was no time like the present. He rose to the

challenge, as David did with Goliath, using the only power he knew.

Quick as a flash, he scooted up the leg of the Dr Mole, hitched a lift on his jacket, and

leapt to a vantage point right under his nose, whereupon he tumed on his bottom and

proceeded to tickle the giant's nostrils with his little whiskery tail.

This sent the Dr Mole all a twitter. He started to snuffle; he started to snort, and all of a

sudden-

AAARCHOO!

He sneezed the most tremendous sneeze.

A sneeze that flattened all those within a radius of ten metres, which included Comelia,

her mouse, the two elves and further down the comstalk, the entire hybrid army.

And the seed? What about the seed?

What do you think piles of seed would do, when they are blown by a giant sneeze?

Thousands of seeds exploded into the air. They flew out the windows and the doors. They

filled the sky with small specs of brown and black and yellow and red and purple and

orange, furry and smooth specs, round and oval specs. They floated and flew and

whizzed and whirred. Some got blown onto bigger winds. Some got stuck in clouds,

which rained over adjoining lands. Some fell on the backs of migrating birds and were

flown half way across the world before they landed and found a place to grow. And some

were carried by ants and butterflies and ended up not far from the farm where Tina and

Denis and Comelia came from.


So it was that Mole Corporations seed was scattered all over the world and farmers had

abundant crops, as they had before. And so it was on the small farm out side the town.

Denis and Tina never did quite understand how Comelia and her mouse understood each

other so well and why she spent so much time twittering with the galahs, ants, butterflies

and fmit bats. But they never heard of Mole Corporation again, though every now and

then, after the rains, there would be a strange smell of bee pollen or fish tails in the ak.

But as long as everyone could eat and didn't smell too much themselves, did they care?

Comelia and her mouse had some doubts. Sometimes.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^ ̂ ^

The Boy With No Belly-Button



THE BOY WITH NO BELLY BUTTON

Once in the far, far future there lived a wealthy mler's son who had no belly button. This

was not at all unusual, because in the far, far future, only the poorest of people had beUy

buttons.

Everybody who could afford to (which included intergalactic ti-avellers, food controllers

and war champions) had no belly buttons. Thek children were bom in special laboratory

conditions, which assured them of the best possible chance of surviving in the far, far

future.

You could be forgiven for thinking that no one in the far, far futtire had a belly button at

all. The divide between those who did and those who didn't have a belly button had

become so great that the only people you saw on the tele-pod news in dim and fuzzy

pictures from war-torn countries in other galaxies had bellybuttons.

In the far, far future anyone who was ANYONE had no belly button. It followed that only

someone who was NO-ONE did have a belly button and they would go to great lengths to

hide it. People without bellybuttons wore their clothes with a strange array of openings

just to prove that nothing so ungracious as a belly button could be found on their midriff.

Those who did have this reputedly embarrassing blob (or dent, depending if you had an

'Inny' or an 'Outy') would inevitably wear thek clothes with lavish coverings to hide

their disgrace. Either that or they lived in countries where everyone was so poor that NO-

ONE who was ANYONE saw them anyway.

Not only could the wealthy people choose whether their children had a belly button, they

could also choose it's sex, and ensure that it had the exact hair colour and skin that they

desired. The eggs and sperm from these parents were united, not in messy couplings in

hotel rooms or even bedrooms, but in special laboratory conditions. These privileged

gametes were often modified slightly before the union, so they could enjoy added genetic

benefits, like glow in the dark bottoms, or incredibly increased mathematical abilities (for


the children of astronauts) or a special gene which meant that they would like bmssel

sprouts.

It seemed that there were many benefits to this procreative system. The messier aspects

of childbirth were avoided, allowing women to remain beautiful for a very long time.

Their hak rarely went grey, and they never developed sagging tummies and varicose

veins. In fact they remained youthful and attractive until they were well into thek sixties.

This led to terrible fights about who was the most beautiful woman in the world, the real

teenagers or the sixty year olds who still acted like teenagers. The real teenagers often

took the sixty year old's husbands from them, during torrid love affaks. This prompted

the wives to take teenage boyfriends and then to write scathing autobiographies about

thek husbands in 'tell all exclusives' in the intergalactic gossip magazines, which have,

I'm sorry to say, continued to flourish well into the far, far future.

As for intelligence and tendencies towards neat, happy personalities, all the children bom

from these laboratories could be selected for cheery dispositions and a propensity for

cleanliness, making them easier for the nannies to care for. You see mothers and fathers

were now so removed from the birth process that they no longer bothered with the awful

realities of mopping up poo, changing nappies and other menial tasks, like hugging or

being affectionate. Instead they chatted with their friends, kanoodled with teenage lovers

or went to the theatre, leaving the children to have a very privileged, but rather lonely

existence.

Not surprisingly this led to a great deal of neurosis in the children who had no belly

buttons. They secretly feared they were not happier than the children with belly buttons,

who their parents looked down upon. Many of them took up activities to seek happiness -

such as classes in exotic dances from around the galaxy - or endured long sessions on

velvet therapist's couches.

In this case, the boy-with- no-belly-button's parents had chosen to give him curiy red hair

and green eyes, with an enhanced sense of eyesight and hearing, hoping that he would


one day become a war pilot. But despite thek plans, as the boy grew older and his

eyesight grew better and better, the boy became more and more unhappy. In his mind his

sharp eyesight was the reason for this. The boy-with-no-belly-button kept seeing things

he didn't like, things that no-one else seemed to see.

For instance, he was growing increasingly uncomfortable with the things he saw on his

home pod television and in the magazines. The boy with no belly button noticed, when he

opened Intergalactic Geographic magazine, that on planets where most people had green

scaly skin, that is exactly what their children would be like, while on his own planet rich

people could choose to have boys with brown skin and black hair or gkls with blonde

hak and blue eyes. It was all rather confusing.

He also noticed that there were many people who liked to say that they were better than

other people, because of their skin colour, the god they believed in, or because they had

no belly button. Somehow, even though science was so advanced that several of his

friends had glow in the dark bottoms, wars were continuing with monotonous and blood

curdling regularity and many people still made vast financial gains from other peoples'

misfortune. This included his father, who sold weapons to other mlers in poor countries

full of people with belly buttons.

One day he tried to talk his friend from Intergalactic folk dance class about this.

"Chill out man, why should it worry us?" said his belly button free friend in her smart

midriff revealing tracksuit as she continued to drink her gaurana enhanced juices and eat

some spicy chili snax. Without further ado she tumed up the volume on her q-pod and

that was the end of the conversation.

Then he tried to talk to his mother, though she only muttered slightiy and waved her hand

dismissively as she tumed the pages of her intergalactic gossip magazine and chatted on

the phone about her latest affair with one of his friends.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^ 56

"I'm so unhappy" he said finally, when he came back from a long therapy session

complaining that she hadn't loved him enough.

"Well at least I've raised you with plenty of money so you can afford your own therapy",

exclaimed the boy-with-no-belly-button's mother,

" But all I wanted was a normal childhood", said the boy-with-no- belly-button, and he

continued to contemplate the middle of his tummy, where his navel should have been.

"So it wasn't enough that we made sure you would be good at sports, not a homosexual,

with enhanced eyesight and free from all major known human diseases?" replied his

mother, looking at the same spot in his midriff.

"But all I see around me is misery, when no-one else seems to notice, he said.

"Sometimes I wish I would die of some terrible disease, at least then there'd be a reason

to feel so unhappy!" said the boy-with-no-belly-button, who was given to a rather

dramatic disposition.

At this point his mother became rather disgusted by his complaining and decided instead

to read some more of her intergalactic beauty magazine. She was particularly interested

in the latest red martian-dust face pack that had been developed by female astronauts on a

recent space mission. As he could see his outbursts were having no effect whatsoever ,

the boy-with-no- belly-button became quite furious and stormed towards the door of their

palatial pod.

"You never listen to me! I'm going to go and discover a disease that I can catch. One that

I wasn't genetically selected to resist!"

And with that, he grabbed a few drip-dry air travel suits, some freeze dried underpants,

food tablets and astro-water, stuffed them in a bag and left the house with a slam of the

pod door.


His mother looked up only briefly, not wanting her mud face pack to crack, and then

continued to read her magazine, and pat her beautifully groomed, though rapidly aging,

cloned Chihuahua.

Once the boy-with-no-belly-button realised he had acttially decided to leave home, his

knees started to knock, a little bit at fu-st, and then quite loudly. But when he thought of

tuming around, going back through the door, and apologising to his mother, his knees

grew stronger, and so did his resolve. He would not rettim, he would go in search of a

disease that he could catch. He'd show her!

Which way to tum? For a littie while he didn't know what to do. He decided to close his

eyes and wait for a sign. Nothing happened. No signs.

When he opened his eyes he saw one. It was a street sign which said 'Belly Button Lane'

and pointed down a street he had never dared look at before. It was a decrepit street, with

very inferior pods, pods with peeling paint and shabby windows; the homes of

(Intergalactic Gods forbid, he could barely stand to think of it) people who had been bom

with belly buttons. Those messy and fleshy folk who were conceived through the most

basic of bodily functions (Intergalactic Gods forbid, he could barely stand to think of that

either) then bom from their mothers' bodies! They seemed to live in this accommodation

because none of them were very well off If they were they would have had their babies

the way the wealthy people did! It stood to reason.

What should he do now? 'Best foot forward' he said to himself 'No time like the

present', then 'feel the fear and do it anyway'. His mind was positively teaming with all

the positive affirmations he had leamt at a recent intergalactic personal growth course.

Yet he was glued to the spot.

A light lunar breeze blew. He stared at his belly-button-less behy. He looked around and

wondered what felt so different. He realised that he couldn't see anyone or anything that


he was familiar with. No-one he knew was within coo-ee of Belly Button Lane. Suddenly

he put one foot forward, then another and before he knew it, he was walking down Belly

Button Lane, feeling his fear but doing it anyway.

h started to get dark. The boy knew that the seven moons would soon be rising, making it

unsafe to be outside. He wondered where he would spend the night. Then he saw a small

pod, which looked very dilapidated indeed, and next to it he spied a small podette,

perhaps a home for a family dog. It was probably for a mongrel, not one of the cloned

Chihuahua's which were all the rage with his mother's friends. Nothing was living in the

pod it seemed, so he clambered inside and settied down for the night, trying to ignore the

dog food in the bowl outside the door.

When the suns rose in the moming, the boy-with-no-belly-button woke with a start. He

shook his head and looked around himself trying to remember where he was. Soon he

remembered it all: the fight with his mother, his walk down Belly Button lane. What

would he do today he wondered and where would he find a disease he could catch?

Suddenly, in the pod next door, he heard some sounds. He wasn't sure whether to be

afraid or not, but he put his ear to the pod wall and listened. Through the wall he heard

sounds like the ancient recordings his parents played on their home entertainment system.

He could hear someone singing.

The more he listened, the more he liked the sound. The voice he heard had a sweet

quality, like the warmth of the second system sun and then there were long sliding notes

from a musical instrument that sounded a lot like the taste of honey, thick and smooth.

All these sounds made him feel strange. One minute it made him feel sad... the next

minute he felt... so happy!

He didn't expect to feel so many emotions so early in the moming. But it put him in a

good disposition to think about what he would do next. He decided he would like to see


where this noise was coming from and see if these people with belly buttons reaUy were

as diseased, unhealthy, and backwards as everyone said they were.

He looked around and found a small window in his podette. What he saw was stranger to

his eyes than anything he had encountered for a long, long time. In the main pod was a

small group of belly-buttoned people, sitting around a table eating and laughing. (This

might not sound very amazing, reader, but you must understand that the people with no

belly buttons rarely sat and talked, or ate together, let alone laughed. They were all too

busy with leisure time to do any such things.) But there, at the head of the table, was the

source of the beautiful sounds. Sitting on a small moon-rock chak was a young gkl with

long hair stranded hak in a hundred plaits who was holding a viohn. She played this with

long flowing stroked of her bow and in between , she was singing with a smile on her

beautiful suns dappled face.

The boy with no belly button had a strange sensation in his belly. He began to think he

was very ill indeed. He had butterflies in his stomach and a weakening and trembling in

his knees. Perhaps what people said was tme. These people with belly buttons did carry

diseases, he was getting one already! His head swooned and his heart was beating fast, he

started to make a low moaning sign, which caused the young giri to stop playing music

and singing and look directiy at him. At which point, he promptiy fainted.

When he came to he heard shrieking all around him, and felt his body being dragged

across the moon-rock yard, through the door and into the pod of the belly button family.

He could tell everyone was looking at him, even without opening his eyes. There was a

high-pitched chattering and he feh people poking his arms, then his legs. He could even

feel his aksuit zip being opened. They were checking for a belly button! At this he leapt

up.

"What do you think you're doing?" he cried. He even felt tempted to cry out, "You are

just what people said you are! You want to rob me don't you! Just because you can't

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables "'-'

afford to have no belly button!" In the end he decided against it out of common decency

and a realisation that he was reacting rather harshly.

He wanted to mn, but the family was standing about him in a ckcle. They all looked at

him surprised. To his horror he saw that each of them had thek belly buttons proudly

displayed and uncovered, unlike anything he had encountered on his home pod television.

They seemed to be flaunting them! The young gkl was the most open, with a great jewel

stuck to her navel. She spoke up first.

"And who do you think you are? What are you doing here?"

Again the boy looked at her, with her hundred long plaits and her sun dappled face, her

bejeweled belly button and her violin in her hand. Again he felt weak at the knees, his

heart beat fast, his mouth dried and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

"I have left my home, and mn away from my mother " said the boy with no belly button

in a strange voice. "I slept ovemight in your dog pod and now I am feeling very unwell."

This made the family look very surprised indeed. They looked at each other, then back at

him. "The dog pod," said the mother of the family, who also had long plaits, though hers

were wrapped in a big top-knot on her head. "No-one has slept there for a long time,

perhaps you have be bitten by a flea."

The boy ttied hard to hide his disgust. In belly-button free homes no insect such as a flea

had lived for decades, ever since cats had been genetically modified with pesticides.

"Perhaps we should put him to bed," said the father, who was quite plump and carried a

drum.

"Why don't we feed him?" said the younger brother, who also looked like he loved his

food.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 1" !

The boy-with -no-belly-button realised he was quite hungry, but was unsure whether he

would be able to eat anything the family had to offer, as he was used to geneticaUy

modified, vkamin enriched fare. "We have garbanzo bean stew with carrots and

potatoes," said the father. "Would you like some?"

"Do you think the vegetables might give me some sort of disease?" said the boy, who

was trying not to be mde, but succeeded anyway.

"I thought you had a disease already," said the mother in an off-hand manner.

"Anyway, if you've mn away from home, what choice do you have?" said the littie sister,

who was small but cheeky and carried a metal hom like instmment.

The girl with the violin tapped him on the shoulder. "Do you mind if I have a look at your

tummy?" She said to him, meaning, of course, his belly button. As soon as she touched

him, all his symptoms retumed and he felt weak at the knees once again.

"I think I will lie down as you suggest," said the boy to the mother, who took him to the

couch, which was covered with many bright fabrics of a type he had only seen before in

Intergalactic Geographic magazine.

"Let me feel your pulse," said the mother, ".. .and please, call me Melody"

"Do you have any idea why you are feeling ill?" said Melody, still feeling his pulse.

"I have been looking for a disease that I can catch that will give me a reason to feel so

unhappy, because I am so sick of being unhappy"

"Your pulse seems fine to me" said Melody. "Tell me about this disease you have caught,

what exactly are the symptoms?"


"Well" said the boy, sheepishly, "every time I am near your daughter my knees start to go

weak, my heart starts to beat fast, I get butterflies in my stomach, and my tongue goes dry

in my mouth!"

At this the mother, the father and the girls brother all fell about laughing and slapping

each other on the back (they did do a lot of laughing and hugging in this family!) Only

the girl was silent, and she hung her head slightiy, went a reddish colour in the cheeks

and started to slink off into a comer of the room.

"You are indeed very sick, boy-with-no-belly-button!" said the mother with great

concem.

"I had this illness when I first saw my husband, and my mothers mother before that had it

too." She said, putting her arm around the shoulder of the boy. Then she smiled at him.

She looked deep into his eyes and he feh a littie better. "This is the sickness we have

before we marry and decide to have children!"

"But don't you have children from your very own body? (And by the Intergalactic Gods

forbid he still couldn't bring himself to even imagine it) he said, staring at the daughters'

bejeweled belly button.

"How else would we have such beautiful and loving daughters and a son, who we love

deariy and have held and cuddled since they were babies!" said the mother. Then she held

the boys hand and asked him to come and sit at thek table (which had the pot of warm

garbanzo bean stew on it, quite different from vitamin enriched lunar burgers he was used

to dispensing from the food cabinet at home).

The boy-with-no-belly-button was quite taken aback and wasn't sure what to do. But he

tasted the warm stew, listened to the laughter and happiness all about him, and listened

more to the sweet singing and playing of the young gkl. Very soon he decided he liked

163 Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^^-^

this disease and started to enjoy himself. He found himself dancing (which he had never

done like this before, even when he did take a class in intergalactic folk dance) and

singing (which he had only heard before on record).

"This is the best disease I have ever caught Melody!" he said to the mother as he danced

about their pod living room. Before long he forgot about his home pod, and decided to

stay and marry the gkl with the viohn.

And I believe that he is there still, and Intergalactic Gods forbid, he has had three little

children with her, all of them with belly buttons!

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^"'^

The Woman Who Knitted Herself A Child


Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^"5

THE WOMAN WHO KNITTED HERSELF A CHILD

Once there was a woman biologist and a very clever one at that. Her name was Cecilia

Moon. Every day she worked hard in a laboratory with twenty other scientists and

sometimes she stayed late into the night. She was not married and she had no children. Her

parents lived in a city far away and her beloved grandmother and grandfather had passed

away many years before. There was nothing stopping her from her experiments.

One night she was in the laboratory alone, the moon her only companion; it's light

gleaming through the tenth floor plate glass window. She was sitting beside her Petri dishes

with her teat pipette in hand, completing the days' work. Sometimes, like tonight, she

cloned cells and waited for them to multiply.

She peered into the microscope, watching some chromosome strands split as a cell divided.

The cells had been dyed blue, so the sttands of DNA stood out like a jeweled necklace in

the beautiful azure. She shivered with the beauty of it. She had the same feeling when she

was snorkehng in the ocean, and caught sight of a school of tiny fish swimming in the

briny fluids.

Then came the part she didn't like. The part when she, like any other scientist, had to sit

and wait. How she hated waiting. The reason that Cecilia Moon hated waiting was that it

gave her time to think. She thought about many things, especially the fact that while all the

other microbiologists and geneticists or plasma-wave specialists had gone home to thek

families, she had no child at all.

She had always loved her work, and until recently had never given these matters much

thought. She had pursued prizes, and competed with the other scientists to create superior

milk, wool, or crops. But waiting gave her time to think about other things than her

experiments. The more she waited, the more she wished that she could have a child. But

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 1 b6

she had no partner, which posed a tricky sort of problem. Where did she hope to get the

child? She wished she could distract herself from these bothersome thoughts.

What did she do? She walked. She tapped her feet, tra-ta -ta. She twiddled her thumbs,

tmm-te-tum. But no amount of twiddling and tapping made the cells divide any faster, or

the chromosomes msh their sphtting, or her thoughts dissappear. A watched pot never

boils. Finally, she decided to sit. And that's when it dawned on her. She needed to find

something to do to pass the time.

The next day she brought her grandmothers' wooden rocking chak from home, which she

placed in one comer of the laboratory. Now while she waited she rocked, racketta-mck.

But rock as she might, she still felt uncomfortable and those watched cells never divided

quickly enough for her.

It occurred to her she needed more pastimes. She considered crosswords, but remembered

they made her fall asleep. She brought in a small radio, but the more she heard of the

terrible wars and fighting going on throughout the world, the more troubled she became.

She needed a calming pursuit. Then she remembered the hobby she loved as a child. She

would start to knit.

She found an old cloth bag at home, the one that her grandma gave her, with wool and

needles and some pattem books. She brought this old bag to the laboratory, even though it

smelt of mothballs and showered her with dust. One corner of her workspace looked like an

old cottage in the woods. Did she mind what her colleagues thought? No! After all, she was

the one sitting up night after night, minding the babies, so to speak. With all her things

around her, she may not need to go home at all!

The next time those cells were doing their thing (oh so slowly); she began to cast on a few

stitches. She began to knit. Clickety-clack.


Clickety-clack, Clickety-clack. Her needles chcked and clacked and her fingers wrapped

and hooked. She felt the strands of wool pass through her fingers and she stretched the

growing, knitted shape with some sort of pleasure. She no longer minded waiting. There

were times when her DNA split twice and three times and she didn't even notice; she was

happily knitting away.

Lets put it plainly. She wasn't bored any more. Instead she found this occupation of her

fingers was creating a calming effect on her mind. Her mind ebbed and flowed, picking

images from the past, then imagining futures that made her joyous or occasionally troubled.

She imagined experiments she might try which would change the course of history. She

imagined herself as Marie Curie, or Edison with his light bulb, or Watson and Crick, who

discovered the double Helix of DNA. She imagined, with some sense of marvel and just a

hint of fear, Dr Frankenstein's dreadful experiments and Dr Jekyll's ignoble pursuits. But

most of all, the more she rocked and knitted and dreamed about the future, the more she

imagined she might create her own child.

When, by the light of day she realised this was not a realistic pursuit, she tried to keep her

mind from this obsession. So she knitted to keep herself occupied. First she knitted a long

colored snake, which she thought her niece might like, and then a pair of rabbits for her

nephew. She considered a crocodile, then knitted a bat instead. After a few months of

rocking and knitting at night, she had knitted a veritable Noah's Ark.

One night, when the full moon was gleaming through the plate glass windows, she was

possessed by a strange whim, and decided to knit a baby doll. She cast on two, four, six,

eight, ten stitches, beginning with the hands.

Have you ever stayed up late, night after moonlit night? Have you watched strange shapes

appear, out of the comers of your eyes, or imagined a long lost relative is sitting quite close

in the same room with you? Have you heard noises or seen shadows or smeh strange

smells? This is what started to happen to Cecilia Moon. She imagined her long dead

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 1"°

grandmother and grandfather sitting beside her, watching her experiments with her,

watching her knit.

She tried stay calm and concentrate on the pattem, but while she kept her hands and mind

occupied, her chak became more and more furious in its rocking motion. Were her own

knees rocking? Or did an invisible hand do it? All she knew is that suddenly she heard a

thud, and she had fallen to the ground. For a second, just a second, she was gone from this

world. And when she retumed, things were different.

Had she traveled during that tiny amount of time, that wink of an eye? From the falling of

her body to her eyelid stirring, had she descended to an underworld? Passed through the

cosmic eye of a needle? Had she seen blood boil or battled monsters, real or imagined?

Whatever had happened, she retumed with some part of her changed, though at first she did

not recognize it. She sat back on the rocker and picked up the cast on stitches. She started

again.

The knitting seemed to have a life of its own. The wool curled around the needle and her

arm, it snaked through the air and twisted around her Petri dishes, scooping up the cells,

forming shapes that she didn't recognise. Tiny blobs that resembled the buds of limbs. A

long chain stitch like the glimmer of a spine. Her breathing was getting faster. Her heart

was thumping loudly. The whole laboratory seemed to dance to a strange beat. She cleared

a comer of the bench and started to assemble six jars, one for the buds of tiny hands, one

for the blinks of the eyes, one for the downy hair of her baby's head... She decided to put

this in a comer where her colleagues were unlikely to look.

Finally she grew tired, but when she thought about going home, she felt afraid that the cells

might stop dividing if she was not there with them and decided to stay the night in the

laboratory, and rock in her chair until she fell asleep.

Have you ever imagined you are chatting to your grandparents, and they, in retum are

talking to you? That they are telhng you of thek life in a far off land, before you were even


bom, before they migrated to this country? That is what Cecilia imagined and she was

comforted by thek soft voices. She remembered her grandmothers delicate touch, bmshing

and plaiting her hair when she was a child. Finally, she drifted off to sleep.

When she woke in the moming she remembered nothing at first. Then she remembered the

strange incidents that occurred the night before. She feh some sense of foreboding, but that

passed quickly when she looked at the clock and realized it was quite late. She got up

wearily from her rocker, to start another day. When she walked around the laboratory, her

regular experiments were just as she left them, no longer the ghoulish visions she had seen

in the night. But there in the comer were the glass vials, strings hanging down, with the

small clusters of cells that had started to grow and take shape. A spine, an ear, a toe.

Her colleagues entered the laboratory one by one. None of them realized she had not

returned home. After all, she was there early for work every moming. She looked around

the laboratory to see if any of her colleagues had noticed her experiment. No one made any

comment on her small gathering of limbs.

In the nights that followed the frenzy continued. She no longer retumed home, she was sure

her plants would all have withered and died, but she would not leave her experiments. For

many nights she continued to knit. As she cast on each set of stitches for the limbs of her

doll, so the rocker started its furious motion and pushed her from the chair. When she

regained consciousness, the knitting on her needles took on a life of its own, twisting and

snaking towards the limbs in the large standing containers which seemed to animate and

grow. Why did she continue? Did she feel she would unravel altogether if she stopped? Did

the skein of wool alone link her to the earth, or her grandmother?

One night when her co-workers had gone, Cecilia Moon went to the comer to see how her

experiment was growing. She saw that it was nearing completion. Hanging in the glass

vials there were all the full limbs with which one could fashion a body. Two small arms, a

rather sweet face and head, two legs and a torso and bottom of plump proportions.


Cecilia Moon lifted the hmbs from the vials and she placed each of them lovingly on the

bench, and commenced assembling the small body she found in front of her. She took the

same needle she used to assemble the pieces of her knitting and hfted it, ready to stitch the

pieces together.

All of a sudden she was surrounded by flickering light and sound. She heard voices calling

for her, felt the bmsh of the ethers on her cheeks, and heard the voices of her grandmother

and grandfather. From the comer of her eye she saw a snake sliding towards her, its tongue

flickering and eyes gleaming. It had the colors of the snake that she knitted for her nephew,

but it was very much alive. She heard the sounds of all the animals that she knitted on those

long and cell splitting nights. She glimpsed her grandparents sitting close to her rocker,

happily chatting to one another, surveying her at work.

She was not sure how long she was standing there. A tingling feeling entered her hands and

she felt the needle in her hand and saw, laying in front of her, all the body parts. She looked

around her, uncertain of what to do. She felt a sense of urgency radiating from the animals.

She saw the snake towering above her and felt its intense glare. She sensed her

grandmother and grandfather watching her from a distance.

"What use a leg without a head?" muttered the snake.

"Exactiy!" replied another voice, "what's the use of mnning if you can't see where you're

going?"

"For that matter, what's a head without ears and eyes?" her grandfather chipped in.

"Or a leg without a foot?" enthused her grandmother.

"Shhhh", snickered the snake, "She must decide..."


The woman looked down at what was in front of her. There were the body parts, alive and

yet with no coherent life at all.

She gathered all the limbs together in her arms and she started to sfroke them. She felt thek

trembling aliveness. All of a sudden she had no doubts, no fears. She moved almost like a

woman possessed. With nimble fingers she pierced the skin with the needle and started to

join the limbs to the torso, the ears to the head, the head to the body and so on. As she

squinted and rethreaded her needle, her work almost done, she looked out of the window

and saw the sun rising. She was nearly finished. She was making herself a child.

When she stopped her concentrated efforts she placed what was in her arms on the ground,

and there before her stood a little child, quite perfect, with dark hair and eyes, immediately

giggling and laughing as it ran about the laboratory, chasing and hiding. She chased after

the littie child, laughing and breathless and finally caught it, hugging it to her body, feeling

its warmth. Then she sat on the rocking chair with the child on her lap. She rocked and

sang, lifting its tiny hands in hers. She only half heard the door open as her colleague

entered the room.

"Cecilia, you didn't get home at all last night?" her workmate said, smiling. "What have

you knitted up this time?"

Cecilia raised her eyes, surprised. "Not knitted this time, look at my beautiful baby!"

She beamed and proudly held up the body between her hands, only to see that dangling on

two woolen arms was the body of a knitted doll, lovingly stitched together.


APPENDIX: Additional Audio-Visual Material to accompany creative works.

1. DVD of Puppetry development documentation. Industry Showing, Sydney, August

2005. Funded by the Theatre Board of the Australia Council and The Sydney Opera

House Tmst.

• Long Version: 1 hr.

• Short Version: 6 minutes.

2. CD of Radio Broadcast The Woman Who Knitted Herself a Child, ABC Radio

National 'Airplay'. Duration: 29 minutes.

3. DVD of Live performance showing BioHome: the Chromosome Knitting Project:

August 16* 2006. Includes:

• Long version: 1 hour 15 minutes.

• Short version: 5 minutes.

• DVD of BioHome Welcome Video, produced University of Wollongong,

Faculty of Creative Arts by Robert Dinnerville, Jessica Ellis and Gregory

Clout. Duration: 3 minutes.

• Documentation of audio ChromoKnit Music by Temmi Namshima.

4. Web site: URL: www.biohomeproJect.com.

Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^ '-^

http://www.biohomeproJect.com

VOLUME 1: APPENDIX

Additional Audio-Visual Material to accompany creative works.

1. CD of Radio Broadcast The Woman Who Knitted Herself a Child, ABC

Radio National 'Airplay'. Duration: 28 minutes.

2. DVD of Puppetry development documentation, Industry Showing,

Sydney, August 2005. Funded by the Theatre Board of the Australia Council

and The Sydney Opera House Tmst.

• Long Version: 1 hr.

• Short Version: 6 minutes.

3. DVD of Live performance showing BioHome: the Chromosome Knitting

Project: August 16* 2006. Includes:

a. Long version: 1 hour 15 minutes.

• Short version: 5 minutes.

• DVD of BioHome Welcome Video, produced University of Wollongong,

Faculty of Creative Arts by Robert Dinnerville, Jessica Ellis and Gregory

Clout. Duration: 3 minutes.

• Documentation of audio ChromoKnit Music by Temmi Namshima.

4. Web site: URL: www.biohomeproject.com.

http://www.biohomeproject.com

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BioHome The Chromosome Knitting Project

Full Version Short Version

Credits Welcome Screen Video

Audio

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http://www.thesisonline.com.au

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