In this companion volume to Ars Electronica 97, artists, theoreticians and scientists dedicate themselves to the task of focusing the global cultural perspective from the collective down to the individual level. The title FleshFactor thus stands for the process of ascertaining what is left over; and, even more, an investigation of what may well be a new human factor, the 'information machine' which, in light of recent events and scientific findings, we are.