Definition: Chimera - see glossary

• An organism, organ, or part consisting of two or more tissues of different genetic composition, produced as a result of organ transplant, grafting, or genetic engineering
• A monster represented as vomiting flames, and as having the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a dragon.
• A modular, X Window System-based World-Wide Web browser for Unix.

Eduardo Kac: Comments from a recent interview on the role of chimera:

"Humankind has always been fascinated by the ancient image of the chimera, a creature like the sphinx or the centaur, that combines body parts from at least two different species. Lab scientists have created chimeras by mixing cells from different species for research purposes. I conceived "GFP Bunny", an artwork that would begin with the creation of a chimerical animal, that does not exist in nature, and that would stimulate a series of complex social interactions. In this case I use the word "chimerical" in the sense of a cultural tradition of imaginary animals, not in the scientific connotation of an organism in which there is a mixture of cells in the body. "

http://www.decordova.org/decordova/decordova/exhibit/terrors/kazanas.htm

LUISA KAZANAS
Untitled, 1998
mixed media
22x14x14"
   

At the intersection of progress and failure lies the flawed being, the variant form. It exists suspended in the awareness that it has been rendered indefensible by its difference. Fear. Fear from others, fear of itself. Realizing that it is less than what is wanted or more of what is ultimately not wanted. The variant form when desired is acceptable, the absence of this desire produces the monstrosity.

http://www.decordova.org/decordova/decordova/exhibit/terrors/laleian.htm

AIDA LALEIAN
Affirm The Jade Fin, 2000
hand-colored silver emulsion on porcelain
6 1/2x9"
Courtesy: Howard Yezerski Gallery, Boston, MA
 

   
My interest is to develop a contemporary idiom which contains some of the potency of archetypal imagery embodied in earlier works dealing with mythology. I have been most specifically intrigued with images incorporating both animal and human components. The hybrid creature when convincingly crafted, challenges the viewer to suspend disbelief and to question the veracity of the photographic image. My photographs deal with sensations of desire and disgust, and of their commingling in a single moment. I am still developing an ongoing personal dialogue in the work, exploring my sense of my own "possible selves."

Artist statement from the exhibition: Terrors and Wonders: Monsters in Contemporary Art

Decordova museum and sculpture garden

http://www.decordova.org/decordova/decordova/exhibit/terrors/azizcucher.htm

Chimera #6, 1999
c-print mounted on aluminum
60x30"

The first line of Ovid's Metamorphoses reads "My purpose is to tell of bodies which have been transformed into shapes of a different kind." Recent advances in genetic science and the confluence of computer, bio- and nano-technologies have opened up the possibility of a completely mutable universe, providing metamorphoses wholly different from those in Ovid. While his beings transformed themselves from one known form into another known form, we are poised to be transformed from known forms into unknown forms. Whether these forms would be monstrous or beautiful, alluring or repulsive, has been one of the questions at the center of our work in the past few years. Mythological monsters such as the Sphinx, Medusa, or the Chimera have traditionally embodied the mysteries of the unknown as well as the contradictions of that which is known, hence their hybrid nature and incomprehensible shape. Our work is essentially a search for a kind of visual poetics that brings our time of transformations into the space of myth.