You have probably never heard of Dr. Ameisenhaufen. What is known of him comes to us only in the form of scrappy drawings, badly exposed photographs, articles from his laboratory, and piles of journals and letters. As someone begins to piece together these artifacts, she might wonder why she has never heard of such an important naturalist. The Doctor appears passionate about the classification of new species. He traveled the globe, classifying every species he possibly could. As our reader continues through his notebooks, she soon finds something peculiar. Unfamiliar species begin to emerge. Bifurcated squid, frogs with wings, and monkeys with small horns, all begin to make her scratch her head a bit. She soon forgets these fascinating specimens as the writing in the journal talks more of the Doctor's life. But then, inevitably, she stumbles upon the image of a flying elephant or a two-legged rabbit with a tortoise's head. She thinks this can't be real. And it's not.

Dr. Ameisenhaufen is an invented person. The artist Joan Fontecuberta presents the Doctor's work in lectures, exhibitions, websites, and in his book, Dr. Ameisenhaufen's Fauna (Fontcuberta). He fabricated every aspect of the Doctor's life and career, specifically to throw us for a loop. Fontcuberta is a photographer, whose earlier pictures of plants suggested to him that he needed to provide them with a deeper context. The plants were faked as well. He made plant hybrids just like the like the animals, but no one realized that they were fake.

In Fontecuberta's work Dr. Ameisenhaufen has a very particular character that we often get to assume for ourselves as we read his journal entries and ponder his drawings. I am very intrigued with his work, because of its use of images and connection to a scientific researcher. For my own creative project, “The Flocking Party”, I needed a way to examine the subject of birds that have been infected with a biologically engineered virus. With this alone I already knew that I had entered the taboo territory of science fiction. I was comfortable with this, though, because I have read some very good science fiction. Neal Stevenson's Snow Crash and The Diamond Age were reason enough to convince me that science fiction wasn't too lowbrow for my fine art project (Stevenson). Cool gadgets aside, Stevenson's works are examples of “social fiction that has aspects of social reality” (McCullough). The social aspect was something that I wanted in my story. The relationship of the researcher to the audience in Fontcuberta's work seemed like the right way to start.

I named my own researcher, Frank Landa, who also kept a research journal. In this chapter I will discuss the spirit of his journal and how it came to be a format for “The Flocking Party”. I will also examine the role that Frank played in the story's creation. Frank is a candid observer, who makes observations of his emotions and family life as well as his scientific work. Although his science is fictional, there are times that we wonder how much of it might really be true. Like Fontcuberta's work it raises questions about the objectivity of Frank's claims and in so doing, all research claims. To contrast Frank's subjective voice, I also added mysterious annotations by another voice, which I will discuss further along.