Here superninja AEon and her pupil are penetrating the defenses on a building that belongs to the family that fascistically controls the entire society where AEon lives. The premise is that most of the human race was wiped out by plague 400 years ago, and the descendants of the few remaining millions live in a single, techno-perfect city controlled by the Goodchild family. Where the design gets great is in the organic look of the technology: here you can see what are basically fruit-weapons. In other scenes, there are computers made of water (which look a lot like the cylon computers from Battlestar Galactica, actually). I like the way this film evokes a future world without resorting to the usual "blinky lights and computers" look.

Plus, the genemod feet! So cool. It makes no sense that there wouldn't be tons of other genemods running around in this flick, but that's just one of a zillion plotholes. For now, just enjoy the coolness. [AEon Flux via IMDB]

The prosecution of Kurtz continued, even after it was clear his wife died of natural causes and he proved the bacteria were harmless. Another cause for the paranoia was an flier in his house for an art show, which had Arabic lettering on it. Once all of these misunderstandings were cleared up, however, the Justice Department prosecuted Kurtz for mail and wire fraud, based on the fact that he ordered the harmless bacteria via a Web site.

Hershman Leeson's first two movies are Conceiving Ada, about Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter who created the first computer language, and Teknolust, about a woman who creates cyborg copies of herself. Here's what Hershman Leeson had to say about the case, and her newest film.

Strange Culture uses a mixture of documentary, actors re-enacting the scenes, and cartoons, because Steve Kurtz was advised by a lawyer not to comment on the case. Were you influenced by the film American Splendor, which uses similar techniques?

It's a coinicidence. I liked American Splendor. My brother knew Harvey Pekar, and he used to come to our house all the time... I think this really had to be a hybrid, there was no other way to make it... The cartoons had actually already been made and I just had to integrate them... I used cartoons in other work, in the 1970s.

Did Steve Kurtz object to any of the ways Thomas Jay Ryan played him, or Tilda Swinton played his late wife?

Not at all. [We had] a lot of leeway with his character, because he likes Thomas a lot. He said the only person who could play Hope was Tilda, so he was happy.

Strange Culture includes a lot of information about the prevelance of genetically modified foods in America. Do you think many people are unaware of how widespread genetically modified foods are in this country?

Yes. I think people are unaware of the erasure of habeas corpus as well, and they are unaware that this case is so important because it would [allow the federal government] to criminalize a civil charge.

The government's case is now entirely based on the idea that it can press criminal charges for a civil statute. Someone says in your movie that this would double the number of laws the Justice Dept could use for criminal prosecution.

It just gives people more control. If someone accidentally makes a mistake on a form on the internet, is it wire fraud?

One of the most chilling scenes in the film is when a professor friend of Steve Kurtz's tries to convince some students to sign the petition for his release. And all but one of the students refuse to sign, because they don't want to jeopardize their futures by getting on the government's radar.

That actually happened to me, word for word. I was at UC Davis and I was trying to get my students to be aware, one, that there was a petition and two, about his case, and they were just afraid, they didn't want to sign anything.

We're huge fans of your previous movie, Teknolust, which also features Tilda Swinton. Is it just a coincidence that both movies are about artists who experiment with science and become accused of being a public menace?

Usually I deal with technology or science and art. I didn't see that relationship before you mentioned it, but it's true.

Do you think part of the reason for the fear of artists using science is the fact that people think only "experts" or specially qualified people should be allowed to do science?

I'm not sure. it's just such a bizarre case that one can't pinpoint why. It had to do with the subject of his work, and he was criticizing the government. And then his wife died and there were strange materials [in his house.]

And there hasn't been any movement on the case since Nov. 2006, when your documentary ends?

There's going to be a trial sometime this year. We don't have a date yet.

Are you ever going to make another fictional movie, like Conceiving Ada and Teknolust?

I just finished a script on Sunday about a vampire. It's really kind of an essay about aging, so it's kind of part three of my trilogy, with Conceiving Ada and Teknolust.

Do you think there are a lot of restrictions on artists using technology and science?

All the time, and they also don't think it's art because it's not painting. so there are all kinds of criticisms... There was criticism of photography when it first happened. It took years before it was taken seriously or considered art. Any time you want to use something new and that people aren't familiar with, they think it's not art and you're a charlatan.

What sort of restrictions on your work as a science artist have you faced?

Not being able to show my work, for as long as 30 years. And then the work was shown, and people got really interested in it.

Does feminism affect how you portray subjects such as creativity or technology?

It absolutely does. The major inventions in tech, the computer language, [came from] Ada Lovelace, artificial intelligence was invented by Mary Shelley. Cellular phone technology was invented by Hedy Lamarr. The major influences have all been women, but people continue to say that women have no aptitude for science or technology.

Do you think you've had a harder time making movies and dealing with technology because you're a woman?

I think it's very difficult for women filmmakers, or maybe it's me because I don't do traditional films. It's amazing I've had as much success as I've had. When I started out, I was paired with Todd Haynes, and then I was paired with Darren Aronofsky. [In both cases], we both won awards, Haynes and I at the London Film Festival for the work we had done and the same with Darren, because he did a film called Pi just when I did Conceiving Ada, and people compared them because they dealt with science. I've just had it much more difficult than my male counterparts. [Strange Culture, from Docurama]

Each exhibit, whether chosen for its scientific design innovation or purely aesthetic value, dealt with the way humans manipulate living matter via modern biotech — or fermentation technology that's thousands of years old. We've got a gallery of the installations from the show, including glowing bacterial colonies and the rainbow skeletons of mutated frogs, as well as an interview with show curator Philip Ross.

How did you get interested in bio art?

I don't call it "bio art." It's more like design, or science. My entry was through weird vectors: working as a chef and hospice caregiver. I noticed similarities between life support technology and death prolongation technology. And cooking gave me this hands-on experience with life materials and manipulating living things into other forms. Also a lot of it came through learning about mushroom growing. I noticed that scientists describe experiments like recipes. Protocols are recipes. The measurements are precise and teh results must be reproducible. I'm interested in ancient biotech too. We've been doing this stuff ever since we could dig a hole in the ground.

Some of the pieces in the show are art, but some are just biotech equipment. Tell us why you chose to include things like the microfluidic arrays.

People never get to see these tools, and yet they're very graphic and visual. Plus, biotech is about to disappear the way microelectronics disappeared with micro-integrated circuits. So I consider stuff like this [exhibit] a last glimpse of this thing before it becomes microscopic.

What about the mutated frog skeletons?

Man people were taken with the beauty of the images of the frogs. That was surprising to me. What's interesting is that Brandon Ballengee's work has an ambiguous relationship to these frogs. He collects them to understand the mutations better and maybe find out the causes and eliminate them. But he also breeds them in his own lab and induces these mutations. So he's also the cause of the mutation; he's implicated. Everybody in the show is implicated in one way or another. They're implicated in things people aren't comfortable with ethically.

What kinds of ethical issues do you hope this show invites people to think about?

I hope that people will come away thinking that they're already involved in biotech. You're already participating in biotechnology if you're drinking alcohol or using a vaccine. it's not an us or them. It's not biotech here and not there. it's been going on for a long time, with fermenting and farming. I wanted people to think about the larger view of how we manipulate living things and why we might do it for alcohol and medicine, but also to understand how pollution alters living things around us.

We're all implicated. You might have a clone in your house and not know it.

Endy is devoted to creating an open source bio-hackers community, and he does a great job explaining the biological machines in our bodies, as well as how we can start reprogramming them. Elliot Phillips has posted video of the entire hour-long lecture, which is a hell of a lot more riveting and mind-blowing than most prime-time TV shows. I urge you to check it out. 24c3 Hacking DNA [Hackaday] Image from Patricia Paccinini.