Could your DNA become art?
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Spit happens: DNA extraction as art
While our previous stories have involved extracting DNA from artefacts - and artists - from the past, we wanted to end with a couple of more recent projects bringing together DNA and art.
Back in 2016, artist Paul Vanouse, professor of art at the University of Buffalo in New York, devised an art exhibition like no other. Entitled “America Project”, this was an interactive biological art installation using DNA fingerprinting technology to generate the artworks. And the donors of that DNA? The visitors themselves.
Upon arriving at the exhibition, visitors encounter a curious sci-fi-looking object that is effectively a large bowl with tubes coming out of it, going down into a machine. They’re then politely asked to swish saline solution in their mouths for thirty seconds and then despatch their sample into it. Now that’s my idea of a fun night out!
Next comes the public performance of science - or is it art? Or is it both? Vanouse purifies the DNA from hundreds of spit samples mixed together, then generates DNA fingerprints by using PCR to amplify specific regions of the genome and separating the resulting fragments with gel electrophoresis. This common, if somewhat old-school, lab technique separates DNA fragments by size, using an electrical current to drive them through a thick slab of agarose gel, then adding a fluorescent dye that sticks to DNA and photographing them under ultraviolet light. Each sample gives a characteristic ladder of bands, a bit like a barcode.
Now here’s where it gets clever. Vanouse planned out these PCRs meticulously to produce patterns of bands that create recognisable pictures when they’re run out through the gel, such as a crown or a flag, which represent power. These are the artworks for the exhibition, which are displayed as video projections of the electrophoresis gels. As well as looking pretty cool, the project has a deeper purpose, aiming to bring biotechnology out of the lab and into the public sphere, sparking conversations about genetics, identity, belonging and power in a new way. And also an opportunity to spit in public.
Chew on this
At least the participants in Vanouse’s art project knew what they were letting themselves in for. Humans leave DNA everywhere, which can now be extracted and sequenced from even the smallest traces. We’ve previously told the story of how DNA from the back of a postage stamp was used to solve a family mystery, and why Vladimir Putin carries around his own personal poo-tin, so his DNA doesn’t fall into enemy hands. So you might want to be careful next time you spit out your chewing gum or stub out a cigarette in a public place, in case someone tries to use it to make art without your knowledge.
Dr. Heather Dewey-Hagborg is an artist and biohacker whose pioneering and controversial project, Stranger Visions, attracted attention back in 2013. Rather than using a pencil or paints to create portraits, she set about scavenging the streets for things that will contain the DNA of strangers, like hair or fingernails, discarded chewing gum and cigarette butts. This may not sound glamorous - especially the bit about collecting hair from a public toilet in New York’s Penn Station - but once the dirty work’s done it’s on to the cool part - genetic face modelling.
After a quick crash course in molecular biology in a local lab, Dewey-Hagborg used DNA extraction kits she ordered off the internet to purify DNA from these artefacts and amplify it using PCR, then sent it off to a lab to sequence specific key regions of the genome related to appearance, such as information about ancestry, sex, eye colour, and physical traits and features like the distance between the eyes. She then crunched through the data with a computer program that creates a model of what each person’s face might look like. Then, to make it really weird, she used a 3D printer to create life-sized versions of these faces, which have been displayed in her exhibitions, along with a little story about the source of this stranger’s DNA.
So would people coming to her exhibition have been able to recognise themselves? This kind of genetic ‘photofit’ technology has been around for a while and is improving all the time as our genomic databases get bigger, although I’m not sure how good it was a decade ago when Dewey-Hagborg launched her exhibition and it’s still not clear exactly how well it can recreate the real life face of a person from just their DNA today.
Your DNA doesn’t reveal exactly how old you are (although there are now epigenetic analysis technologies that can get us close), if you’ve had any accidents, surgery, aesthetic work or weight change that might change your appearance, or whether or not you’re wearing a beard, glasses, makeup or anything else that might make a difference. And, of course, there’s the whole ethics, privacy and consent side of things to consider. This kind of technology is pretty controversial, especially as the ability to recreate a suspect or unknown victim’s face from DNA is of great interest to law enforcement.
Ten years ago Dewey-Hagborg told Smithsonian Magazine that the project “...came from this place of noticing that we are leaving genetic material everywhere. That, combined with the increasing accessibility to molecular biology and these techniques means that this kind of science fiction future is here now. It is available to us today. The question really is what are we going to do with that?”
Her answer has been to do more art. Since that project, Dewey-Hagborg has gone on to explore the intersection of art and biology in more depth, and it’s well worth taking a browse through the Bio Art section of her website. There’s a link in the show notes for the episode for this podcast at geneticsunzipped.com, along with references for all the other stories we’ve talked about in this episode.
