XXI and 23

"Aesthetically, the Air Jordan XXI includes personal design elements from Michael Jordan himself, echoing his 'DNA' - or characteristics - that make up his outstanding on-court performance and off-court persona." — Nike press release for the Air Jordan XXI shoe

Courtesy of Nike

"It is obvious today that the genetic code must be considered the most fundamental of all the semiotic networks, and therefore a prototype of all the other systems of signaling that animals use, man included." — Sebeok, quoted by Baudrillard, in Simulations

Courtesy of Nike

"Supporting the launch, Jordan debuts a visually stunning television spot called '2nd Generation', created by Wieden+Kennedy New York. The commercial introduces the Air Jordan XXI and pays true testament to Michael Jordan's legacy through a moving re-creation of his most famous career highlights performed by young basketball players, illustrating how his influence will continue to impact generations from the past as well as generations to come. In addition, visually stunning 'DNA-themed' imagery of the Air Jordan XXI also appear in outdoor, print and online venues." — Nike

Notes:

Coincidentally, there are 23 pairs of chromosomes in the human body.

"Re-create" should read replicate.

The 500-year plan continues.

Date: March 1, 02006
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sportsBabel

sportsBabel examines the aesthetics, politics and poetics of sport and physical culture, weaving between materiality, information, intuition and intellect. The notes posted here should be understood as emerging from an ongoing program of research-creation.

Threads of inquiry include: the security-entertainment complex and the militarization of sport; mediated sport as a spectrum of interactive possibility; the experiential qualities of postmodern sporting spaces; the cyborg body athletic manifest as mobile social subject; and the potential politics of a sporting multitude.

sportsBabel is produced by Sean Smith, a writer and artist from Toronto and a doctoral student at the European Graduate School of Media and Communications in Switzerland. Also a lecturer at various universities in Canada (curriculum vitae), his dissertation is titled "On Performing the University of Disaster."

department of biological flow

The Department of Biological Flow is a project of research-creation by Sean Smith and Barbara Fornssler exploring the concept of the moving human body as it is integrated with broader information networks of signal and noise.

The reference is from George Lucas' epic 1971 movie, THX 1138, in which a state-controlled intensification of communication processes manages every facet of daily life in a futuristic society, regulating the flux of all human subjects in work, leisure and love.

Though the Department exists in homage to Lucas’ vision, our consideration of biological flow seeks to reinvigorate the agency of the human subject in its negotiations with economic and political structures both material and immaterial.

www.departmentofbiologicalflow.net

XXI and 23

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