Ocular revision

source: paulvanouse

Biology, which defines the cell as the basic unit of life, is a discipline broadly impacted by an ocular frenzy of the Modern period. Prior to the microscope, the life sciences were limited to anatomical investigations. A timeline of optical devices of this period includes telescopes, microscopes, endoscopes, gastroscopes, oscilloscopes, and a multitude of related visual tools. The images / visual information produced by these devices was based around the lens, which like the eye that it aided was fundamentally circular.

Conversely the DNA image typically belongs to a different regime of late 20th century screen-based information, cartesian coordinates, x,y locations, and the database. And while the 19th Century marks the age of biology, the late 20th century marks the “post-biological” age, because DNA is increasingly understood as a code rather than a material substance. The post-biological turn marks a point of cybernetic fantasy in which the infinite complexity of the wet organism is finally humbled by the easily quantifiable genetic code that supposedly exercises total control over the flesh.

Standard DNA image showing multiple DNA bands on gel.

Ocular Revision, custom, circular electrophoresis rig shown. Ocular Revision is an artwork incorporating an alternate mechanism for the analysis and display of the DNA image. Typically, DNA is visualized in a rectangular chamber containing a porous gelatin that has an electrical field across it. When DNA is inserted into one side of this gelatin the electrical current pulls it across the gel at a rate corresponding to its molecular mass and thus differentiates DNA of different sizes.

Ocular Revision uses a custom, experimental, circular gel electrophoresis rig to visualize DNA bands. I designed this circular rig to be polarized from inside to outside of the circle. The radial design and inside-out polarization allows the apparatus to create DNA images reminiscent not of a “barchart” or a “progress bar” on a computer screen, but rather a slow emergence; a signal; a flowering; an attraction or repulsion.

Ocular Revision attempts to nudge DNA imaging back toward the realm of biology. The goal (at least at present) is to force DNA to be read as substance rather than mere code and thus hopefully break a certain deadlock in Genetics caused by its overly simplistic operationalization.

The first images that I am creating with the circular DNA electrophoresis rigs are based upon hemispherical maps of the world.
These “Genetic Maps” could be interpreted as simplistic form-based puns in which the circle is a visual metaphor for a heavenly body like the earth. But at a deeper level they call attention to ingrained metaphors such as “genetic mapping”, which are problematic because “mapping” implies (distanced) simplification, abstraction, and exploitation (i.e. political, and economic maps of the world).

The three adjacent image pairs show:
(top) Actual human DNA imaged on the Ocular Revision circular electrophoresis aparatus. Image formed is just a test to see if the device would work, not meant to form a specific image.
(middle and bottom) Sketches, hypothetically showing how the hemisheres of the earth might be produced from apropriately sized DNA fragments visualized in the Ocular Revision aparatus.

The final exhibition form of Ocular Revision is variable. It will probably entail large images of the circular maps, generally these images will be time-based, perhaps they will be produced live, perhaps they will be accompanied by the circular electrophoresis apparatus itself.
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source: artbuffaloedu

Paul Vanouse has been working in emerging media forms since 1990. Interdisciplinarity and impassioned amateurism guide his art practice. His electronic cinema, biological experiments, and interactive installations have been exhibited in over 20 countries and widely across the US. Venues have included: Walker Art Center, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Carnegie Museum, Andy Warhol Museum, New Museum, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires, Louvre in Paris, Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt, Berlin, Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie in Karlsrhue, Centre de Cultura Contemporania in Barcelona, and TePapa Museum in Wellington, New Zealand.

Recent large-scale solo exhibitions include: Schering Foundation in Berlin (2011), Kapelica Gallery in Ljubljana (2011), Muffathalle in Munich (2012), and Beall Center at UC Irvine, California (2013). This work has been discussed in journals including: Art Journal, Art Papers, Art News, Flash Art International, Leonardo, New Scientist, New Art Examiner, New York Times and numerous academic books on art and technology.

Vanouse’s artworks have been funded by Renew Media Arts Fellowship (formerly known as Rockefeller New Media Fellowship, 2008), Creative Capital (2006), New York State Council on the Arts project grant (2000, 2005), New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (2002), Pennsylvania Council on the Arts project grants (94, 95, 98), PCA Fellowship (98), National Science Foundation (1997). He has received awards at festivals including Prix ARS Electronica (2013, 2010, 2007) in Linz, Austria, and Vida, Art and Artificial Life competition (2002, 2011), in Madrid, Spain. Museum commissions include the Walker Art Center for “The Consensual Fantasy Engine online” (1998), and the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle for “The Relative Velocity Inscription Device” (2002).

For the past decade, Vanouse has been specifically concerned with forcing the arcane codes of scientific communication into a broader cultural language. His recent projects, “Latent Figure Protocol”, “Ocular Revision” and “Suspect Inversion Center” use molecular biology techniques to challenge “genome-hype” and to confront issues surrounding DNA fingerprinting. Vanouse holds a BFA from the University at Buffalo (1990) and an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University (1996).
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source: paulvanouse

Paul Vanouse is an artist working in Emerging Media forms. Radical interdisciplinarity and impassioned amateurism guide his practice.

Since the early 1990s his artwork has addressed complex issues raised by varied new techno-sciences using these very techno-sciences as a medium. His artworks have included data collection devices that examine the ramifications of polling and categorization, genetic experiments that undermine scientific constructions of race and identity, and temporary organizations that playfully critique institutionalization and corporatization. These “Operational Fictions” are hybrid entities–simultaneously real things and fanciful representations–intended to resonate in the equally hyper-real context of the contemporary electronic landscape.