Her doubts sit and marinate as she speculates weather either project is worth the wrath of her sweat blood and tears over the next quarter in the Digital abyss of the Experimental Media Arts.
Maybe she will wait for new aspirations....but for now....
Project 1: Fragile X Fountain
This will be a physical installation that is meant to bring awareness to the biological group of diseases caused by trinucleotide repeat expansions somewhere in the genome. Specifically, this fountain will portray how many individuals are born with the Fragile X Syndrome each year/month/week/day while also mimicking the mechanisms of causation of the disease.
It will consist of three separate parts:
PART 1-Pump
A pump which is timed to squirt a specific amount of water into a basic. Each squirt represents a repeat. After 200 squirts (200+ repeats=full mutation=FragileX Syndrome) the basin will topple over.
PART 2-Basin
This basin will be collecting the "repeats", representing the q arm of the X Chromosome in a genome. After 200 squirts it will be full and by momentum and physics will be gravitationally forced to be toppled over into a device collecting this water to represent the total amount of individuals born with the syndrome.
PART 3-Collection bin
The collection bin is the most powerful part of the fountain, as it is meant to represent a tangible view of the amount of individuals born in the world/USA (depending on available statistics) per chosen amount of time.
DESIGN
will be a very important aspect of this fountain. The above diagram is a basic depiction of how this object is going to function, but the design will be a lot more thought out and metaphorically poetic. I want this to be a tangible and visually appealing piece of art that will draw with its visuals in order to make a statement, be easy to experience and connect to.
Click here to look at a draft of my proposal in word
Project 2: Sounds from Within
[http://home.comcast.net/~john.kimball1/BiologyPages/D/DNA_sequence.gif]
What does the above image look like to you? If you're a biologist you can tell that this is a simple graph taken from the Big Dye Termination method of sequencing any part of a genome. If you don't know anything about genetics, this graph may look like a blueprint for a sound piece, raw data of sound waves depicted by colors in some internal order.
While working at my lab, sequencing DNA using these machines was a regular chore. I would perform this chore every day, let me tell you, as these colorful graphs of the core of life appeared like magic after every time, I definitely felt like the messenger of divinity.
My subconscious connected these lines in this format and now I would like to hear these sounds from within.
The idea here is to assign one instrument to each color, each DNA base, and somehow import the data from sequencing into a sound program. Then you press play. Compare, contrast instruments, mix, be a DJ of the bases of life.
Things that come out may be amazing, they hopefully will have patterns, they will engulf a rhythm. It may fail and nothing may be apparent to our humanly fragile ears.
We will see.
Click here to look at a draft of my proposal in word
