Heather Dewey-Hagborg is not only an artist, she is also a DNA biologist and computer programmer extraordinaire who does shocking things with science in the name of art, such as finding a blob of chewing gum on the street and then printing out the face of it's owner in 3D and installing it on a gallery wall.
During a therapy session, Heather Dewey-Hagborg noticed a single hair stuck in a crack in the glass of a print on the wall, she began to wonder who it belonged to and what they were like. From this day on continued a fascination with discarded genetic material and the information it holds about that individual.
Over time Dewey collected stranger's hairs, nails, cigarette butts and chewing gum from across New York, spurred on by the fact that we all carelessly shed our DNA all over the place all the time and are not even aware of it.
The samples are then taken into the Genspace lab in Brooklyn for DNA extraction. Dewey works alongside the Biologists learning all about Molecular Biology and DNA. Once the DNA has been extracted she amplifies certain regions of it which is called PCR – Polymerase Chain Reaction. She then studies the areas of the genome which contain the information which can vary from person to person which are known as SNPs or Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms.
The PCR reactions are sent off to a lab for sequencing and what returns are text files filled with sequences of As, Ts, Cs and Gs, the nucleotides which compose DNA. This information is then fed through a custom computer program (which she wrote herself!) and takes all these values which are the codes for physical traits and translates them into a 3D model which is then printed out using a Zcorp 3D printer. Features which visibly show up include gender, ancestry, eye colour, hair colour, freckles, lighter or darker skin, nose width and distance between the eyes. Although science and technology are not yet advanced enough to create a spitting image of that person, Dewey maintains that there is a general 'family resemblance' in each of her 'sitters'.
As impressive as Dewey's work is it also conjures worries about anonymity. Just imagine a world where your face can be perfectly replicated from the smallest hair or skin cell left behind on the bus. Chewing-gum offenders would be easily tracked down and fined for their littering and suspicious wives could conjure up faces of their husband's mistresses following a quick swab of the bathroom sink.
In a world where technology speeds along faster than our morals and human right's it is interesting to have an artists take on such alarming progressions.
By Jessica Hazel
