Over at Slate.com Amanda Schaffer has done an article on artists dealing with bioengineering. link

This month as I desperately figure out how I'll pay rent (as I'm involved in multiple web projects where the designers aren't pulling through on their end in a timely manner and thus bringing me down with them...) I feel a little funny.

"Adam Brandejs' recent work mounts a more successful critique of biotechnology without actually using it. Genpets (2005-06) presents a fake biotech company, Bio-Genica, which purports to sell genetically engineered pets in convenient clamshell packaging. Genpets come in a variety of color-coded personalities and are kept in a "hibernation state," with a "fully functional heart-rate monitor." A "fresh strip" ensures quality until you take them home. "They are living pets, but better, modified to be as reliable, dependable and efficient as any other technology we use in our busy lives," the Web site explains. Brandejs' parody is full of imagination and benefits from some creative distance, making it a sharper commentary than Kac's or Catts and Zurr's more-technical efforts."

kind words indeed, and ones that while they won't go to my head, do make me feel better about not knowing how the hell I'll afford rent this month.

I'm 25 and just being mentioned along side the big boys is honor enough, never mind opinions on how my work may or may not compare (that is of course in the eye of the beholder, ---... doesn't mean I won't gloat though!!!).

This coupled with my possible inclusion on a possible upcoming project where my name is along side other artists like Chris Landreth (created the oscar winning short "Ryan") and others blows my mind.

When Sam and Allanah came in to interview for a quick clip to be used for the project (that shall not be named..) and Sam not only knew Genpets but apparently all his friends had messaged him about it etc when it was first out,... well, I guess I don't see that side of it, I don't realize that people have actually seen it, I see the stats, the millions of hits, but numbers aren't people, it's hard to wrap my head around the fact people might actually know my work. it's hard to fully understand that it's being shown in university lectures, or that the press articles/magazines it's in are being read by people (or at least flipped past...)

Tying that into being included along side Oscar winning or governor general award winning artists, and being talked about along side the big boys like kac or catts, I don't feel like I'm quite as much of a failure.

I'm not sure how professional it is to say "I feel nice not being ignored and being mentioned along side the famous artists" but screw being professional, I'm 25 and that's pretty great.

If I can actually ever pay my rent I could actually get back to creating art and possibly make it even further... (or possibly not, who can say)

anyone wanna buy a genpet? now with 32% more love from Adam Brandejs?

I unfortunately receive spam attempts to all of my email form systems, be it this website, a clients site, or especially genpets.com

blocking via keywords is nice, but nowadays spammers simply use groups of non coherent words.

here's a useful way to implement a block, depending on what sort of site you run it might work great.

generally no one sends me links via legitimate email on my forms, sometimes one or two. but never 5-7!

so it seems to make sense to count how many links are in a body of text, and then block the email if there's more than, in my case 5.

here's is the code below.

//check for link spam

preg_match_all("/http/i",$Message,$matches);

$cnt = count($matches[0]);

if($cnt >=5){$errors[] = "Email Spam detected! Please do not try again, your IP has been logged.";

}

obviously switch the IF to what you need, but I use an error array and only send if the array is empty.

this is not an end all be all approcah, but it should cut down on the amount coming through, and if combined with IP logging and keywords should be close to 100% successful.