The Distribution of Intellectual Property Claims on the Human Genome. Source Data: Jensen and Murray (2005) Intellectual Property Landscape of the Human Genome. Science 310:239.

Click here for a zoomable version

Approximately one quarter of human genes are protected by intellectual property regulations. Little information about the number and distribution of gene patents is available in a manner empowering to members of the public. Existing gene patent resources rely almost exclusively on verbal search strategies for access in contrast to visual interfaces that promote exploration and discovery. This can be traced to the relative immateriality of genes which cannot be seen and whose effects are experienced through a web of medical, environmental, and social constructors.

One solution to this problem is to create a visual map of patent claims in the human genome. By representing the location, number, functional, and patent characteristics of genes, such a map could provide immediate visual access and cues for further investigation. Maps are created through the contributions of multiple constituencies and exist as objects for discussion, reflection, and mediation. Using patent data from the human genome developed by Jensen and Murray (Science 310: (2005) p239-240), we have started this project as a series of creative sketches. CAMBIA continues to update these data in accordance with current information.

Genes involved in human health, disease, and drug discovery tend to be heavily patented. A map would provide reasonably accessible information to non-specialists and help to scaffold conversations surrounding these issues. It is helps to document regions of positive selection, where specific genes are being disproportionately valued, by social and technological actors operating on human and non-human life processes.

A Model of Mitochondria in the Cell

What is a mitochondrion? It’s an organelle (kind of like an organ in your body) for a cell.  They generate much of the chemical energy used by a cell to carry out its different processes.

I have been working on a project for the last few months that extends work on what I call Silking Systems. By calling it Silking Systems, I’m trying to emphasize the patterning of silk and textile production as a set of relationships, things and interactions to accomplish varieties of silk/non-silk relationships, rather than as modes of behavior or production which are static – or should I say pre-threaded?

In 2008, some of my students researched How Silk is Made (after How Stuff is Made) for my class on Design for Sustainability. Their work documents the collection and processing of the silk fiber from cocoons to the thread you find in finished textiles.

Steps to a square cocoon.

In attempting to learn about sericulture from scratch, I visited some local producers in Karnataka, India and pulled in some textual research and advice – including Joseph Needham’s classic series on Science and Technology in China (1998 ed).

The most recent concept that I want to document here is pretty simple. Human mitochondrial genome sequences are woven in sequence using silk to produce a pattern that matches the mitochondrial nucleotide patterns.

Ashwathnarayann

Checking the loom's warp.

I have a few implicit goals and a few explicit ones as well. An implicit one is that I am attempting to push the relationship between craft, production, economic agency, and hybridity. I am drawing to some extent from the idea that economic value is generated through recombination – that goods and/or services emerge and create value when they are mixtures of other (especially unrelated) things.

Transferring the silk thread for the weft from Gabriel Harp on Vimeo.

Eric Beinhocker details this concept of value through hybrids along with an evolutionary algorithmic perspective on economics in his book The Origin of Wealth (2006). The book was recommended to me by Cesar Hildago, a Research Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for International Development. Cesar’s work on complex networks has also influenced this project, starting with his article on the Product Space of Nations (2007) and continuing with images like figures 1 and 2 which came out of his research. The network graphs make it easy to see how different economies differ in the products they export.

Fig 1. This image maps the products produced by the United States in 2000. The squares are things they are good at – in the US's case vehicles, chemicals, forest products, for example.

Fig 2. This image maps the products produced by India in 2000. The squares are things they are good at – in India's case textiles, chemicals, and diamonds, for example.

My thinking is that by challenging some aspects of the status quo in silk and textile production, new value propositions might be found. This comes, perhaps, by demonstrating that square cocoons are possible or by remixing molecular genetics and weaving to create a series of silk stoles based on a mitochondrial haplotype found frequently in southern India.

Preparing the shuttles from Gabriel Harp on Vimeo.

Another goal is to simply visualize the mitochondrial genome – and to make it as accessible for teaching and learning as possible. Making it tactile and making it in silk allows people to touch, feel, and to see individual sequence variation. Silk thread is a good scale for this sort of thing – not too small and not too big either. So in viewing these stoles (which measure about 5 meters each in length) one is challenged to look for patterns and they are rewarded with the same.

The mitochondrial sequence used to produce the pattern next to shuttles that carry the silk thread through the warp.

Weaving silk using a mitochondrial sequence from Gabriel Harp on Vimeo.

Checking and threading the warp. You can see the silk fibers and how thin a single one is. It takes years to master silk weaving because it is a very delicate and dexterity-rich process.

Finished pattern stretched on the loom.

I’ll expand this article as the project develops further, but I’ll end now with one nagging curiosity. The pattern that is being produced is engaging and pleasing. It makes me wonder if it in some ways exploits a bias we humans may have towards certain arrangements. Specifically I’m thinking about pink noise patterns…but I need to search more.

References

Needham, J., & Kuhn, D. (1988). Science and civilisation in China: spinning and reeling. Vol. 5. Chemistry and chemical technology. Pt. 9. Textile technology. Cambridge University Press.

Beinhocker, E. D. (2006). The origin of wealth: evolution, complexity, and the radical remaking of economics. Harvard Business Press.

Hidalgo, C. A., Klinger, B., Barabasi, A., & Hausmann, R. (2007). The Product Space Conditions the Development of Nations. Science, 317(5837), 482-487. doi:10.1126/science.1144581

National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore
March 10-14 2008

Call for Participants

Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology and the National Centre for Biological Sciences, in collaboration with the Arts Catalyst and SymbioticA, is organising an intensive 5 day workshop for artists and others interested people. It will be led by SymbioticA’s Director Oron Catts and his scientific collaborator Greg Cozens from the University of Western Australia.

This is a hands-on workshop where the tools of modern biology are demonstrated through artistic engagement, which in turn gives voice to the broader philosophical and ethical exploration into the extent of human intervention with other living things. It involves exploration of biological technologies and issues stemming from their use, and serves as a theoretical and practical introduction to the creation of biological art and is aimed at educating artists from India in issues of biotechnology and the life sciences.

The workshop will cover hands-on engagement with these technologies in order to be able to carry out and critique manipulation of living systems from an informed practical perspective. The practical components include DNA extraction and fingerprinting, genetic engineering, plant and animal tissue culture and basic tissue engineering techniques.

The workshop will present work of contemporary artists dealing with biotechnology. Scientists will be involved discussing ethical issues raised by artists’ work in this area and leading visit to NCBS laboratories. At the end of the week, the ideas explored in the workshop will be opened out with a public discussion event at a venue to be announced in Bangalore.

Attendance and Conditions:

Attendance at the workshop will be by selection through open submission or by invitation. The selection will be made by Srishti, SymbioticA, the artist in residence at NCBS, and the Arts Catalyst’s curator, currently in residence at Srishti. Artists are expected to be available and present for the entire week-long workshop, as this is an intensive process of learning and social interaction. Artists should be based in India, or nearby countries in South Asia.

There is no cost to selected participants to attend the workshop, but travel and other expenses will not be covered. Limited accommodation is available at NCBS for artists travelling from outside Bangalore. Subsidised meals will be available for participants at NCBS.

The organisers believes that the effects of the workshop will be felt in the long-term, as the artists, having learned the technology, will start working on their own biotech projects, or at least feel their work is informed by the experience.

About SymbioticA:

SymbioticA is part of The School of Anatomy and Human Biology, Faculty of
Life and Physical Sciences, University of Western Australia. SymbioticA is an artistic laboratory dedicated to the research, learning and critique of life sciences. SymbioticA is the first research laboratory of its kind, in that it enables artists to engage in wet biology practices in a biological science department.

SymbioticA sets out to provide a situation where interdisciplinary research and other knowledge and concept generating activities can take place. It provides an opportunity for researchers to pursue curiosity-based explorations free of the demands and constraints associated with the current culture of scientific research while still complying with regulations. SymbioticA also offers a new means of artistic inquiry, one in which artists actively use the tools and technologies of science, not just to comment about them, but also to explore their possibilities.

Links to the organisers:
www.symbiotica.uwa.ed.au
www.srishti.ac.in
www.ncbs.res.in
www.artscatalyst.org
www.cema.srishti.ac.in

Please send an expression of interest in attending as an email, including a CV and brief bio, by February 8 2008 at the latest to Meena Vari, Srishti: meena@srishti.ac.in

This workshop has made possible thorough the generous support of part of The School of Anatomy and Human Biology, and Faculty of Life and Physical Sciences, University of Western Australia, NCBS and the Sir Rattan Tata Trust.

This is a symposium at UCLA from 2004 that I came across while doing a search for “systems art.” I haven’t had a chance to listen to the proceedings yet, but they sound tasty.

The description I’m most intrigued about is Sue Lewak’s, UCLA Dept. of English.

“‘I’m sure those are not the right words’: The Language of ‘No-Sense’and Self -Organizing Systems in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”

Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, approaches the idea of self – organization through the dissolution of macroworld rules. Indeed, it is through Alice’s negation of conventional rules that she develops the ability to “form” a coherent microworld system. Thus, as Alice’s gradual acclimation into the wondrous language of “no-sense” indicates, self-organization at the microscale lies in the ability to perceive an existing system, rather than in the creation of a new one.

visit the site here:
Self-Organizing Systems: rEvolutionary Art, Science, and Literature (ELO)

and the accompanying website here

Organelle View is a collaborative project aimed at developing the role of visual media (versus verbal) in the exploration of bioinformatic semantic networks. In cooperation with the Kumar lab and in my role as creative director and project manager, I led the team through the proof-of-concept stages of development with a successful grant application and navigation through the complex task of translation among scientific, IT, and artistic goals. In this instance, A virtual reality model dynamically linked to a bioinformatic database and designed to increase the use of rich media in collaborative learning. Developed with support from GROCS, the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, IBM, and Apple Computer, Organelle View allows users to learn about organelles and protein localization in a yeast model cell.

As a result of the Organelle View project, team members Chris Landau and Jamie Cope went on to form N Formation Design. The project is now being taken further in affiliation with the Kumar Lab. An animated version demonstrating the cell cycle in in the works.

organelleview.lsi.umich.edu

Living Drawings Homepage

(left) “Her Own DNA”

Bacterial Drawings by Hunter O’Reilly