Paul Vanouse is a Professor of Visual Studies at the University at Buffalo. He is also the Co-Director of Emerging Practices MFA. He is an artist working in Emerging Media forms. Radical interdisciplinarity and impassioned amateurism guide his practice.Since the early 1990s his artwork has addressed complex issues raised by varied new techno-sciences using these very techno-sciences as a medium. His artworks have included data collection devices that examine the ramifications of polling and categorization, genetic experiments that undermine scientific constructions of race and identity, and temporary organizations that playfully critique institutionalization and corporatization. These "Operational Fictions" are hybrid entities--simultaneously real things and fanciful representations--intended to resonate in the equally hyper-real context of the contemporary electronic landscape.