I was floored by this article, so here it is posted online. Thank you so much Frank for your kind words.

Tech-savvy sculptor says pet project is satire
By Frank bentayou, Plain Dealer Reporter

Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Edition: Final, Section: Arts & Life, Page E1 Zone All

ART

Would you love to have a cuddly little creature around the house but aren't keen on 5 a.m. dog walks, cat-litter patrol or the cold stare of a tropical lizard?

Consider Genpets, the latest no-fuss, bioengineered domestic life forms.

You can learn about these trademarked, "prepackaged . . . living, breathing genetic animals," as promotional material calls them, by calling up www.genpets.com.

But, first, a confession: Genpets aren't what they seem and aren't really alive.

They're part of an art installation, a creation of Canadian sculptor and Web designer Adam Brandejs, and owe less to the burgeoning science of bioengineering than to an ancient tradition that art often must take a role in satirizing, criticizing, even mocking features of human behavior that defy survival, integrity and plain old good sense.

These faux life forms are actually molded plastic figures that Brandejs and his girlfriend, Crystal Pallister, packed with robotic devices that make the dolls' chests heave and monitors blink within their plastic packages.

A hope underlying satire is that it might awaken viewers to some new awareness. Brandejs' Genpets are weird, even creepy, but seem to carry a message about the limits of tampering with life for commercial purposes.

The 24-year-old artist, fresh out of Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, already is receiving worldwide attention through his thought-provoking art installations. And, in fact, Genpets is part of one of the most original sculptural, electronic and conceptual artworks you can find on the Internet - or anywhere else.

In part, it focuses on one of the most bizarre ideas of 2006: living pets "engineered" from the DNA of various life forms (apparently, including humans), alive and hibernating, stocked on retail shelves and programmed to bond with whoever buys and awakens them and to be trouble-free for their new owners.

Brandejs said people have responded in droves, with anywhere from 5,000 to more than a million discreet hits per day on the Web site. Visitors send often-scathing e-mails.

Some have seen the elaborate display as an ethically outrageous effort that renegade scientists cooked up to commercialize bioengineering. Others have groused that the phenomenon is nothing more than a sleazy hoax designed to sell ugly rubber dolls.

"It's neither," Brandejs said. He's not selling his models via Genpets.com, and they certainly are not alive.

He conceived of and created Genpets as his art-school thesis, but he enjoyed the concept so much, he kept working on it. "It went a little overboard," he said.

Overboard? The Web site links to convincing published articles, scientific details and graphics as well as to "product" features (each package includes a heart monitor to show that the pet is "alive"), a bogus online store selling accessories and "nutrient packs," and even a 20-page catalog aimed at recruiting wholesalers and investors.

Brandejs has shown his installation - including packaged Genpets hanging from a retail display rack, Web site, multimedia presentations and artifacts - at galleries around Canada.

The work most recently hit Basel, Switzerland. All the attention drew interest to
his earlier student work. Exhibits are scheduled in Hamburg, Germany; Toronto,
and New York this fall.

The modest artist acknowledges a strain of edgy, deadpan satire. (An online portfolio at www.brandejs.ca shows more of his work.) Packaged pets, for example, are available in pre-programmed one- or three-year life-span models, depending on buyer preference.

That seems a grimly witty commentary on how people may want pets, but not the long-term responsibilities they often demand.

"I have a definite interest in materialism and consumer culture," Brandejs said. And he prefers "dealing with issues that we like to sweep under the carpet."

Genpets' issues include the dark implications of bioengineering at the service of modern convenience, "but also how animals are already treated in pet stores and factory farms. They've become a consumable good," Brandejs said.

He received no grants or other support for his student works. Instead, he financed materials and months of toil with jobs as a Web developer/designer.

The source of his inspiration? "It would be impossible to ignore issues such as technology and convenience, as art must reflect the times," Brandejs said.

Caption:
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ADAM BRANDEJS Artist Adam Brandejs'
attention to commercial details focuses the sharp satire of his Genpets
installation on ethical questions regarding both bio- engineering and the
treatment of animals.


PHOTOGRAPHS BY ADAM BRANDEJS Toronto artist
Adam Brandejs created 19 robotic Genpets for his art installation by that name,
each packaged with a blinking heart monitor and pulsing apparatus to make it
appear as if it's breathing. "The Web site is part of the installation," he
says. "But actually to see the installation in a gallery, with all these little
guys breathing, is kind of creepy."

My roommate Ben Dickerson was the first assistant editor as well as titler (? He did the titles… what’s that called? He’s out right now..can't ask him) on the film Sharkwater that was playing at the Toronto International Film Festival.

If you missed Sharkwater, Alliance Atlantis will be distributing it across select theatres in North America soon.
I found it to be an amazing film because it breaks down the myth of sharks as 'killers'.

I think the quote "more people are killed by pop machines a year than by sharks" or, if that’s not good, more people die from acne, than from sharks says a lot.

People kill sharks, not the other way around. Shark hunting and killing for fins is insane, and sharks ARE needed to keep the underwater ecosystem in balance.

Check it out, you’ll find it interesting.
-------------------
Opening Party
The other week we also went to the opening party for the film at Century Room here in Toronto. Not the sort of place I’d normally go as I’m not a coked out full of myself sort of guy, but it was fun the one night (though 50% of attendants were coked out). The drinks were of course all free, and the sharkwater cocktails had glow sticks in them.
So like any group of mid 20’s guys and gals, not looking to shindig it with industry hypes, we got tanked on free booze.

Haven't updated in awhile, been too busy.

Finished the Film shoot with Ania and Nichola. They hired me to do prosthetics for a short film where Shawn (the actor) unzips his stomach and washes his intestines in the sink. Its pretty looking, can't wait to see the final film. It's a short of course.

I made a zipper prosthetic, intestines, as well as a full fake chest for close ups.

I'll add a full portfolio entry with more photos later at some point when I get more photos back. Till then, teaser.

----
Oh, and I also wrote a full image upload system for my site from scratch. No more opening photoshop, doing a crop, etc, uploading via ftp.. coded a nice little upload system that does all the work for me. Makes journal entries a lot easier!! ;) Just click the images above to enlarge.

I felt like posting this email I received (with the authors permission), as I think it's close to the sort of response I wanted to get, feel free to give it a read.

"Hello there. I was rather intrigued by your Genpets concept and I felt
like sharing.

When I first heard about Genpets it was from a friend on DeviantArt.
I don't know how she had found the website, but she seemed to think
they were the real deal. I was one of the people who read through the
website horrified. I thought it couldn't possibly be true, that this
couldn't possibly fly in our modern, seemingly ethics-obsessed day
and age. Even more I was disgusted at the reactions of the others my
friend had shared this with, people who thought this was a great idea
and wanted to embrace it by owning one of these things.

I am a self-loathing human so I am predisposed to hate a lot of
things my species does. It didn't take me long to accept that Genpets
could very well be possible given the gross abuse of technology and
lesser-creatures already in practice. It was just an example of us
going too far... again.

As I prepared to type my concerned response to this, in my mind,
obscenity, I thought about my current job at a store called Waldo
Pets. I realized that maybe my concern over this was entirely
hypocritical being that I worked at place where we offer a
two-for-one deal on certain colors of gerbils, living breathing
animals. I had to stop and rationalize my own opinion for myself
saying that the albino gerbils were not only fairly natural creatures
but also free to roam their cages until picked up and taken to a home.
I typed and posted my comment still disgusted but now confused.

How much difference is there really between a glass aquarium and a
plastic package? The gerbils are still bred and born for the specific
purpose of being a "pet," a form of entertainment or occasionally
companionship for a human caretaker or "owner." Still I attempt to
rationalize, being an "owner" myself, that the gerbils are still
entirely different than the concept of Genpet-like creatures. But
even as I type this now I'm in debate with myself once again.

Now knowing that Genpets are fictitious, I am so relieved but I
wonder how much relief that should really warrant. It's only time
before something like this becomes an issue. Bioengineering already
is. The discovery of the truth behind Genpets hasn't stopped my
questioning. This is still a very real issue for me considering how
much it has made me question myself. Sure, it's a waste and misuse of
technology that can be put to so many more-beneficial things. But from
an ethical standpoint, is it really so bad? Or does it just show us
how bad we already are? What is bad anyway? It's confusing. My
opinions and ethics are in question at my own hands.

The statement you've made with your art is, well, intense for lack of
better words. Speaking as a 16 year-old novice of an artist, I know
how difficult making any sort of statement is. For that, I admire
you. But mostly I thank you. I thank you for making me question not
only mankind and its potential, but myself as part of it. Clearly,
things are not so clear.

Sincerely, Caranne"

I ever so often skim over a forum or two, and many times the word 'hoax' comes up when referring to Genpets. Which I admit, I find amusing. Hoax, it would be if it sold something. But it does not, the word you’re looking for, if not art, is ‘spoof’ or 'satire', even 'parody' (if the intent was humour).

The spirit of art is to create an illusion. To call Genpets a hoax, would be like looking at paintings from a few hundred years ago and calling them a hoax, as they depicted people, that weren't actually there. Oh wait... people did say that. Calling something a hoax, as virgil wong pointed out to me in a recent email "also makes it sound purely malicious -- as opposed to an honest, humorous, or creative investigation of sometimes absurd possibilities".

Those paintings I speak of, that look pretty now, were also many times highly charged with political discourse, depending on who was standing in the painting, and where.

Hence we have politically charged art, whether it simply looks pretty to you now from the standpoint of a modern viewer.

So I find it amusing that the same thing still comes up now, art is here to push boundaries, but when it does, people get a little edgy. History does repeat itself. But that tells me I'm on the right track.

I also have to question why TV, film, and books can be regarded as forms of entertainment but art cannot. Perhaps it just hasn’t been done enough and it’s time to break that misconception?

(ps, thanks SJW on I-am bored. I noticed that). and Thanks to Snopes for doing such a nice writeup. (link)

Feel free to tell me I’m wrong, that’s what the comment system is there for.

Darn it. No one ever tells me before they do an article. If you’re writing about Genpets PLEASE tell me! And if you READ about Genpets somewhere PLEASE TELL ME.
I keep hearing rumours about articles through forums and blogs, but I can’t put that in my CV, not without a date, then I can contact the newspaper or other source for more info.

As I’m a young artist, proving that I can get people interested in what I do can really help along my career and help me win grants and get more gallery shows.

If you saw something, and don’t see it listed in the CV, please tell me! I’ll love you!

Thanks!

(www.mdcn.ca)
Had fun at the first part of my internship for the Mobile Digital Commons Network project. We were in Montreal at Concordia’s Hexagram lab for the past 4.5 days doing some pretty intense writing, brainstorming, and then some actual visualization prototyping. Beyond simply spewing out ideas I found myself doing a lot of After Effects work and a tad bit of 3d studio max. There wasn’t enough time for me to get into producing any actual physical objects, but I didn’t mind doing video work, as I haven’t done it too much for the last little while.

The MDCN project we’re developing is basically a game played out with the assistance (or use) of cell phones. 8 players meet on Mount Royal in Montreal and interact with the game and solve tasks using their phones. We’re working off newer models so that we can take advantage of GPS tracking and monitoring of players, as well as bluetooth communication between phones, and between Bluetooth enabled gear (accessories we build). Such as an animatronic teddy bear that becomes activated only at a certain part of the map, and then triggers a video to play on the phone.
The short is that Arthur English who is buried on the mountain (famous Canadian who hung over 400 people) is trying to escape, so players have to complete a set of tasks or ‘locks’ to stop him. English is one of three storylines being developed for the project.

Intern: MDCN (Mobile Digital Commons Network) Montreal + Toronto. A project working on developing interactive immersive live action games for cellphones. MDCN is a joint project between OCAD and Concordia University amongst others.

The only prize/scholarship I wanted to win, and I did, so how excited was I?! Very. Very, very excited to have the studio space I need to do bigger sculpture. (a $9000 studio, all to myself, who wouldn’t smile? I’m honoured the judges felt my piece worthy of winning).

I now have a personal 500sq ft studio in the heart of Toronto’s art scene at 401 Richmond, just a hop skip away from where I live. I’ll be finishing up the two small pieces I’m doing now, and then when I get the studio july 1st, I’ll be starting some large works.

Thank you OCAD, donors, and 401. Adam’s gonna make some crazy shit now. I won some other scholarships as well (listed under the CV) and those will go towards material cost. Mmmmm silicon skin. I’m going to make Genpets look like child’s play.

A lot paper work to get Genpets off to Switzerland. The fact they’re electronic added extra paperwork and tricky wording for customs, but so far I managed.

First time I wrote up the commercial invoice I worded it a little rough:

Art sculpture. Foam latex rubber encased in plastic.
Rca type wires, tubing
200watt power supply.

Sounded like a bomb rather than art, but they give you so little space, but I managed to word it better in the end.

Airway bill, commercial invoices, transport order for Swiss customs, etc, now I know how, it wasn’t the volume or length or paperwork, it was the tricky wording they use. “unit of measure” had me on the phone to learn I had to write “each” versus pair…. I was thinking inches but then I was all logical, and we all know there’s no place for logic in the year 2006.

Point is though, now I know how to do it, and everything from this point on will be a lot easier. Though I can see why for many producing the artwork becomes a minor part of their career as an artist. Also did up a fancy little instruction manual for how to setup Genpets as I won’t be there to do it myself. If you wanna give it a gander go to Genpets.com and download the new catalogue.

Yup, so I got the graduating Medal for my department at OCAD this year (Integrated media)

Stuff, shin dig, people…

Denise from the faculty of art office was absolutely wicked, she was there to be like, it’s fine don’t worry, everythings good. I don’t like shin digs, I’m not a small talk person, and so I especially got nervous for the Bravo TV interview thing but she made everything good. Thanks Denise!

Oh and also David Macintosh invited me to participate in a discussion on the mobile digital commons network in Montreal for 4 days. Free trp is good, having people value what goes on inside my head, even better.

Genepts at grad show
Amazing how people always assume the plastic and display etc are all manufactured or something, the idea that I actually created everything from scratch causes disbelief. Though I guess it's a compliment to the quality of the work.
I don’t like to stand and talk, I answered the occasional question but mostly just hung over the railing above to watch and listen from time to time like a ghost.