Drawing from Life

The Drawing from Life installation was developed as a commission for the ‘Genomic Revolution’ show at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The exhibit opened in May 2001 and ran through January 1, 2002. In this piece viewers see a live video of themselves composed completely from the letters ‘ATGC’—the letters symbolizing the 4 proteins of DNA. This piece appears in the last room of the exhibit on the human genome and helps raise questions for visitors ‘am I more than my DNA’? ‘Does my DNA define me?’ The light or dark value of each letter is determined by the light or dark value in the incoming video, but the characters themselves change randomly—hinting at the vitality and chaos of life itself.

(Source: Artist's description at project site)