Art or Science? Ebon Fisher's Evolving System of Ethics

How would you model human social interactions? What are the essential elements of human interactions? We think about a person across the room. We probe perhaps by studying the way they are dressed or by asking our friends about the person. We connect by talking to the person and making eye contact. Then we disconnect if and when we decide we no longer want contact with that person. With essential basic elements such as these, Ebon Fisher has created the Zoacodes, which collectively exist within The Nervepool, an attempt to model human social interactions in a language of networks, similar to telecommunication networks. In the early 1990s Fisher established "community-based media rituals" in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in which to study human relations. Fisher's work seems to cross the bounaries between art, science, philosophy, and multimedia entertainment. But are these social scientific experiments or multimedia art parties? "Like much of the party culture, they tend to flirt with classic values of peace and love," says Fisher. "But not surprisingly, most traditional religions and cultures share these values as well."