Heather Dewey-Hagborg: 3D Faces From DNA Found In The Streets

A well documented site of a DNA find!

Rest assured, the DNA that artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg collects doesn't come from somewhere gross like used condoms or saliva - just from your typical hair strands, cigarette butts, spit-out gum, and disposed finger nails. Of course, you don't know that she's collecting this DNA, or that she's creating and printing a 3D visualization of your face with it, because she's finding all of this DNA samples in the city streets, washrooms and trash (well, maybe not the trash).



This series is known as, "Strange Visions" and the samples are collected in New York, where we're sure nobody thinks it's out of the ordinary to see someone in medical gloves rooting around and collecting samples of cigarette butts and old gum off the sidewalk.

I loved reading about the process of extracting the DNA and creating the image, but thought other people might find that a bit boring, so I didn't rewrite it all out on here. I am, however, leaving a link to an article on the Smithsonian Magazine website, so that this neat information is but a click away.

Heather with her own face

What's sort of cool about these sculptures, is that DNA can't decipher what age you currently are, so in all the images that are derived from DNA, a 25 year old version of that person is spit out. I think it's really neat to think that the person might see the sculpture but never recognize themselves, because in reality they're 89, or maybe just 12!

When you think about it, this new fangled 3D computer system means now we really can see what our new baby will look like when he or she is all grown up - except instead of taking a picture, we take a saliva swab. With that said, is this art project showing us that maybe our technology is getting a bit out of hand? Take one of these heads (the digital file) and stick it on any body you'd like, and BAM, you have just 3D printed your very own life-size, human doll shell. Creepy enough for you?

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Advertising with Postcards and E-vites

This is part shameless advertising, part good advice.

At Sheridan our annual glass show in the gallery is coming up, and the third years always have to design an image to go on the postcard/e-vite. I think this year we did spectacularly well compared to past years, but to be honest I have only seen a couple of old postcards.

Rather than an image of somebody's work (or slices of everybody's work so there's no fighting) we all agreed to do an edited picture of our digitry.

Personally I think this is more eye-catching than a picture of art because it's out of the ordinary, especially in a wing that's filled with nothing but art!

Do you have any interesting ideas for business cards or postcards for yourself? Do you think it's okay to represent a diverse show (40 students and faculty), with one piece of art?

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Bangkok Art and Culture Centre

The Bangkok Art and Culture Centre is an amazing 11 storey building that features galleries, gourmet cafes, create-your-own craft shops, niche bookstores, and even a pop-out bike shop! I'm not even sure how a pop-out store works, but I'm loving it!

I really wish I had something like this nearby to hit up, it would be much more entertaining than the usual mall! Apparently there's a few of these venues out there, so I wonder why I've never heard of them before now?

I also think that the 'mallesque' atmosphere of the art centre presents culture in a way that would be very attractive to children and young adults. After all, the stuffyness of some museums can really kill the atmosphere, don't you agree?
The official article I checked out was here on Nation Multimedia.

Do you think 11 storeys is a bit excessive, or should North America start taking some notes?

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Help An Artist Keep His Eyesight! - Andrew Tarrant

http://www.indiegogo.com/TrespassersEye?c=home

I love websites like indiegogo and kickstarter. I think it's amazing that people have created spaces where others can petition for donations (or 'crowdfunding'). What I usually see has been for research and project development, but this campaign is a little different!

24/25 of these mugs have already been claimed. I really want one too!

Andrew Tarrant is going blind, which would be devastating enough on it's own, but he's also an artist, which is even more terrifying. His donation program is running for another 108 days, in which time he needs to raise another $7780, and he's offering some pretty cool things to those who donate.

Another mug up for grabs!

If you are broke, lazy, or iffy about donating money, you can still lend a helpful hand by sharing his campaign page on one of your social networks! It's not that hard, and you know it would feel great to know that one copy and paste could be enough to help save a fellow artist's sight!

http://www.indiegogo.com/TrespassersEye?c=home

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