Zach is a second year PhD student in English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, as well as an independent filmmaker. His research interests include human-computer interface, translation between the analog and the digital, theories and representation of information, 19th century geology, medieval alchemy, nanotechnology, autopoietic conceptions of life, complexity, and scale. His Collaborative Media Commons project (www.cmcommons.org) seeks to integrate traditional academic theory-based work with collaborative art creation, blurring the lines between narrative and theory, ideas and media objects, and ultimately the academy and the public.