Context and New Code

architect Saša Bradić
project The Korneuburg State School, Korneuburg, Austria
written by Alan Kostrenčić

 

“Which came first, the intestine or the tapeworm?” In this epigram, Burroughs suggests that parasitism – corruption, plagiarism, surplus appropriation – is in fact conterminous with life itself.

 

Viruses are not self-sufficient organisms; they are not even fully alive. To be able to reproduce, they need to enter into a cell of an existing, living host. A virus is DNA or RNA in a protective envelope, it is a message coded in nucleic acid, containing only the order to self-replicate. A virus is a simulacrum, a copy without an original, reproducing futilely and infinitely.