Archive for April, 2006
see.change.
What is the shortest distance between obscurity and fame?
For a person?
For two people?
For a group of people?
For the relationship between a person and a thing?
For the relationship between a thing and a thing?
Are they equal?
What is their trajectory?
How are these distances and paths measured?
ORLAN visited us last week
She said we seemed a bit isolated- that we needed to get out and experience the world some more. I assume she meant the art world. She suggested New York. In a sense, she doesn’t know the half of it…
opening scene: alt take
medium shot, pov following an unknown individual
the individual turns to the camera and says,
person 1: “we’re on our way to the library to find a map”
action continues up steps of library to the inside of the library to the maps division
greet curator
person 1: I’m looking for a map of the genome. Can you help me? Is there a map I can look at?
..response…
pan north to establishing shot of biomedsci complex
"What does a Center for Genomic Interpretation Look Like?"
I don’t know, but it would have exhibits. It would be public, and it would extend into the semi-private spaces of laboratory work and processes. A website comes to mind. How is the information about genomics articulated, clarified, made public?
Two approaches, same goal
The problem: identify the pocesses associated with genomics (the study of the genome (the genetic complement of an organism)) in a manner that enables public (political) participation.
1st question: what does a gene look like?
2nd question: how do we represent it (assume it is singular for the sake of simplicity for the moment)?
3rd question: for whom are we representing the gene(s)?
Approach One:
Cinema-based, experimental-documentary form, identification of actors and pathways associated with the process of gene identification and representation.
Begins with a question, search strategies, isolation, identification, characterization, duplicaton, representation, and distribution.
Narrative follows scientific pathway of questioning, but with the inclusion of multiple points of view (human and non-human).
Begins with a “motivating event or condition” aka the McGuffin
-perhaps narcolepsy, sleeping sickness- genetic
SCENE OPENS: with a woman going about her daily routine, washing, brushing, fixing, walking, sleeping, waking…until things start deteriorating, repetition, sickness– then blood drawn, sent to lab, processs begins…
Approach Two
Interactive, digital multi-media- using the ability to substitute multiple representations for a single instance. GENOMIC CINEMA.
User-defined questions and tasks. Shows multiple points of view and represents differents aspects of a gene (cultural, biochemical, typographic, etc.)
Animated, live-action, visualized
