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Beyond the Junglenaut

Swarming into the Hivemind of Space

Introduction
In our never ending quest to bend and stretch limits whether within or without space, today, JungleAAA will add a new chapter. That these efforts are not limited to imaginary space alone must be clear by now. At least for those who have followed our multidirectional steps into several directions at once. And it would be a delay upon our escape velocity to repeat everything we have said and done before. So for those momentarily at a loss, I recommend that you read up on the subject. Some preliminary statements, though, have to be made in advance, in order to follow the argument that: through our flesh we aim to embody our theories into praxis.

Chimponauts
From the very beginning the AAA has rightfully stated that in our present day situation, with big money and big military at the pushbuttons, our potentialities for evolving into space have been very limited and restricted. All efforts of the autonomous astronauts - from Luther Blisset's sex in space to Kitsou Dubois' zero-gravity theatre performances - have been directed to break space open so it can accommodate us all. But whereas some of these projects have been regressing into the next trend on the artistic stage, JungleAAA is not giving in to the lures of success and is, instead, taking all these plans to enlarge space, one step further and in applying them to the astronauts themselves. For autonomous astronauts to really escape earth's gravitational pull and explore all new and strange possibilities that zero-G implies, it is necessary to leave the human organism behind and develop ourselves into becoming true junglenauts.

Human models are outdated. Human individuality is a concept invented and developed by multinational corporations to increase their profit. Jungle AAA has no special attachment to the humanoid individual. Therefore it proposes to replace the human ideal type with the animal one. In order to really launch ourselves into space, we have to give up our humanity. And to achieve this goal we have to follow where the animals have gone before. Early explorers like the many Laika's and Chimpanzees, who served as animal test-subjects to study the effects of zero-G, should not be viewed as mere stepping stones for human progress. Instead they should be seen as role-models in whose truly giant leaps we can only hope to follow one day. In the mean time we have to subject our bodies to the tests we are inflicting upon ourselves. Not inhibited by a backward fear of death, the junglenaut will perform experiments which might cost it its life, but which it will prefer over the living death in earth's poisoning atmosphere. We will shed our human characteristics and explore the ways in which we can enhance ourselves by using animalistic genetic sequencing. By using scientific discoveries for our own goals we will become chimponauts playing monkey games in the depths of space.

But before we start imagining how great it would be to be a dogonaut wagging our tail as AAA is bringing down the beat with a superb bass line, let's turn our attention to two apparently little feats of science fact that supply the fuel for our fiction.

Sleeping Genes of Hibernation
In 2000, at North Carolina State University, two genes were discovered which are thought to be responsible for mammalian hibernation. PL and PDK-4 appear to mastermind hibernation. When activated these genes make sure that the sleeping mammal can sustain for a long time on very little water, and avoid muscle cramping and degenerative bone loss. From hibernating bears it is known that they are somehow able to take urea -- a chief component of urine that is produced during tissue breakdown and that, if left to build up, becomes toxic -- and use the nitrogen in it to build new protein.
The idea behind these scientific discoveries, is that somehow it must be possible to trigger similar genes which lie dormant in the human body. The American army, which has been funding the research, is interested in the concept of inducing protective hibernation in battlefield casualties to keep them alive when medical help is not at hand. And taking their cue from the sarcophaguses in Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey, NASA is currently investigating the possibilities of using these discoveries for putting astronauts into hibernation for long trips to Mars and beyond.

Although it seems reasonable that you need to put people into hibernation if you want to travel to the limits of known space, you don't have to have studied Foucault to see how NASA is using this scientific discovery to spread the Panopticum into the galaxy. By controlling when, how and how long we are asleep, they are molding our bodies into obedient drones. For long-distance exploration, they could also choose to start communities in space which could swarm out into the universe during several generations. But this, of course, would mean a demilitarization of space travel, some sort of influence of the people involved - which includes discussion and dissent - and naturally sex. Characteristics, a military organization as NASA abhors.
Instead of activating the sleeping genes to turn humans into a switch you can turn on, or better, off whenever your country needs you, JungleAAA is taking control of our own bodies. We don't need others to tell us when we have to go to bed and when to wake up; when it is time for work and when for relaxation. So JungleAAA uses the same genetics that enables NASA to totally control their subjects, to break this system and to sequence our own bodies. Not as programmable droids but as sources of information reacting to the circumstantial influences that alter the original algorithms. Like a bear we will sleep when we feel that it is right to sleep. And as free data we will program ourselves when, how and how long we want to work.

The Ear of Ormia
The Ormia is no normal fly. It's a very tiny insect parasite with acute directional hearing. Not only can the fly match the species thought to have the best directional hearing --Homo sapiens -- but it does so with a fraction of the head space. With human ears about 6 inches apart, we have about 10 microseconds to make the same calculation that the Ormia fly, with its half-millimeter head, makes in about 50 nanoseconds -- a thousand times faster. Researchers from Cornell University are developing ways in which this fly can be used as a model in the development of hearing aids and nanoscale listening devices.

JungleAAA will be that fly on the wall. The spy listening in on secret conversations. Blending in with the surrounds, we will steal every bit of information necessary for our advancement into space. The fly looks like a perfect model for the junglenaut; collector of information, small recording device; gatherer of sound. As first DJ's on the moon we will use these fly characteristics, this acute sense of hearing, to enhance our skills at the wheels of steel. Never has sound been so quiet and silence been so loud. As flies we will swarm out in the universe, as nodes in a network that is the hive-mind of space, collecting, recording and rearranging information as we come across it according to our personal wish.

Coda
When we tell people about our plans to head out into space, most of them ask us in total disbelieve: is what you want not totally impossible? To all those people I can only say: Demand the impossible.
'Cause: The easiest thing about building a space rocket, is building a space rocket.