I ran one last DNA gel before I finished up in the lab this week.
- DNArt – Shaun O’Boyle
I had some PCR samples (left over from my research) that I’d been keeping in the fridge. I keep a PCR sample in the same way that I keep the Guardian entertainment supplement if it has a thought-provoking deconstruction of the Miley Cyrus / Hannah Montana dichotomy (they’re not the same girl!) – I’m convinced that I’ll need it someday, whereas in reality I really really won’t.
I loaded the leftover samples as the gel ran, so that the final image would represent a question mark (with some Photoshop intervention and a 1kb DNA ladder on the left). The question mark, while echoing the mystery of where Hannah ends and Miley begins, is intended to represent two things: One was the specific question I was asking in my own work (why do two copies of the same gene behave differently depending on which parent they were inherited from?); The other was the open-mindedness central to science – to ask questions independent of dogma, and to listen to the answers you get.
My inspiration, and the first electrophoresis art I saw was this excellent piece by Paul Vanouse. He used restriction enzymes to digest DNA and create different “portraits” that explore the genetic identities of Cyrus and Montana (not really the last part).
Shaun.
This is brilliant. I love how the Cyrus/Montana dichotomy is so inspirational in your work.
I guess the same concepts could be re-appropriated, and re-imagined, to look at the Cheeky Girls and Jedward and the notion of identical twins in the public eye and how their sense of self is affected by the inability of others to tell either apart.
Very awesome! I am inspired to do something like this to preserve my sanity in work, now!