evolution, hybridity and mutation: three generations of
TRANSCRIPT
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables
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!
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables
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.
Water Woman (whispered)
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 11
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 12
Kihing babies
Sounds of a child sitting on an old rocking chair. Click clack of needles.
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!
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 13
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 14
Original
Sounds of a child sitting on an old rocking chair. Click clack of needles.
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 15
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.
Synthetic Computer Voice
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.
Sounds of needle insertion. Organic sounds. Whoosh of fluids.
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 16
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.
Mitochondrial ditty (chant/echo)
The splitting of cells
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 17
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...
Boys' voices (memory/echo)
Puffer fish! Puffer fish!
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 18
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.
Synthetic Computer Voice
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.
Sounds of needle insertion. Organic sounds. Whoosh of fluids.
Mitochondrial Water's Sound. A musical soundscape that features biological sounds
associated with cells and fluids in which cells divide.
Mitochondrial ditty (chant/echo)
The thickening of blood in the womb...
Abortion 3
Sounds of leafy suburb, birds singing, a car driving past.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 19
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?
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 20
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!
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 21
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.
Synthetic Computer Voice
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 22
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
waiting to become. This sound space is ambient and evocative both of body and memory.
Mitochondrial ditty (chant/echo)
The splitting of cells
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 23
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 24
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.
Boys' voices (memory/echo)
Puffer fish! Puffer fish!
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
Mitochondrial ditty (chant/echo)
The cramping
The splitting of cells.
David Essex lyrics - 'Hold me Close'. Transforms to breathing beneath the sea surface.
Water Woman (whispered)
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
waiting to become. This sound space is ambient and evocative both of body and memory.
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 26
Pick up baby from the ground! (clap)
Pick up baby from the ground! (clap)
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...
Sounds of laboratory. Teat pipette.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 27
Scientist
Since I remembered...
Sound of threading needle.
Child
I've got some hair, ten toes, ten fingernails and a bottom, (giggles)
Sounds of laboratory. Teat pipette.
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 28
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 29
Dr Egg And
The Man With No Ear
(A post-human fable for 21'* century families.)
Puppetry Script
(Rehearsal and animation)
By Catherine Fargher
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 30
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 31
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 32
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 33
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
Volume I: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 34
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 35
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 36
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 37
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 38
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 39
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 40
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 41
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 42
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 43
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 44
^ : 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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 46
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 47
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 48
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 50
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 51
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 52
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 53
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'
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 54
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 55
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 56
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 57
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 60
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!
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 61
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 63
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 66
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 67
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!
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 68
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.
SAD MAN TO THE RESCUE #2
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 69
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 71
Of a daughter's love?
Black out.
SAD MAN TO THE RESCUE #3
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 75
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 76
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!
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 77
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 78
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 79
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 80
BioHome: The Chromosome Knitting Project
Performance/Installation Script
By Catherine Fargher
Performance/Installation Dates: August 16̂ '̂ - 25*'̂ 2006,
Fca Gallery, Faculty Of Creative Arts,
University Of Wollongong.
Duration: 50 Minutes.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 81
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 84
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.
89 Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 90
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 91
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 92
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 93
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;
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 94
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 95
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 98
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 99
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.
102 Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 103
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)
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 104
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 106
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 108
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.
109 Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables
(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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 110
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
114 Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables
ORIGINAL BIOETHICAL FABLES
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables ^ ^ '
THE MAN WITH NO EAR
BY
CATHERINE FARGHER
Volume I: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 118
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.
125 Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables
"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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 126
"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
By Catherine Fargher
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 130
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 131
"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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 132
"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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 133
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 134
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 135
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 136
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 137
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 138
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!"
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 139
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 140
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 141
"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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 142
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 143
"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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 144
"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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 146
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 147
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:
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"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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 149
"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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 150
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 151
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
By Catherine Fargher
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 153
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 154
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
Volume I: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 155
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 157
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 158
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 159
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?"
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 162
"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
By Catherine Fargher
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 167
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
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 169
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 170
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..."
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 171
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.
Volume 1: Hybrid Scripts and Bioethical Fables 172
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 ^ '-^
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.
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