A Convergence of Art and Surveillance

Adapted from 
"Art from DNA Left Behind"
by Josh Dawsey for the
Wall Street Journal
March 11, 2013

Artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg with a 
DNA-created self-portrait sculpture.
www.deweyhagborg.com



 Gimme a Booger and I'll Make You a Face

"Sample 6," from Heather's sculpture
exhibit, "Stranger Visions."  What if 
you walked into an art gallery and 
your or your kid's or your momma's 
face was displayed like this on a 
wall...with no prior notice to you?
Such is the world we live in. 

        They are the faces of real people, portrait-like sculptures etched from an almost powdery substance. The eye colors are distinct, the facial contours sharp, even though the artist, Heather Dewey-Hagborg, has never met or seen her subjects.

        Instead of using photographs or an art model for her work, Heather scoops detritus from New York City's streets—cigarette butts, hair follicles, gum wrappers—and analyzes the genetic material people leave behind. Heather, a Ph.D. student in electronic arts, makes the faces after studying clues found in DNA.

        "I don't think I'm creepy, but I could see how someone would think this project is creepy," said Heather, 30 years old, who splits her time between Brooklyn and upstate, where she attends the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  "Maybe I'm kind of weird." 




        Five of her portraits have been displayed at galleries across the city in an exhibit she calls "Stranger Visions," most recently with a run that ended Feb. 28 at the Clocktower Gallery in Lower Manhattan. The piece has inspired a crew from Technology Entertainment and Design to shoot footage for a documentary.

       Heather currently is in talks with the New York Public Library for putting the exhibition on display there. It will also appear in a gallery at Rensselaer Polytechnic beginning May 12, 2013.

        What has struck many isn't her use of science but her use of art to illustrate obscure research—known as "genetic surveillance," the technique isn't new but it remains unknown to many.  Her scientific work has been checked by experts, including Eric Rutledge, a biology professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic.

        The exhibits have attracted outside interest.  She is working with Delaware's medical examiner's office to identify bodies.  Hal Brown, an assistant medical examiner in Delaware, sent her a case recently after reading about her work.  "If she's looking for samples, she doesn't have to pick up [stuff] on the street," Mr. Brown said.

From Obsession to Artwork

"Sample 4," from the 
"Stranger Visions" exhibit.

        The idea first struck Heather while she was sitting on her therapist's couch, supposedly untangling her own life.  She became fixated on a hair twisted in a painting's crack, trying to figure out how it got there.  Therapy could wait.  "I could just envision the person's hair getting tangled in the painting," she said. "I still think about it."

        After reading online about genetic research, Heather joined Genspace, a New York genetics laboratory, and brought samples she found on Brooklyn streets into the lab for DNA extraction.  She amplifies small DNA strands using a technique called PCR—polymerase chain reaction.  She then studies those that vary among people and sends the results to a lab for sequencing.

        She receives back text files filled with DNA sequences and uses a computer program to take these values and correlate them with human traits such as eye color and gender.  Using that information, her imagination, and powdery material she described as similar to sand and glue, she constructs a face and brings it into being with a three-dimensional printer.

        In 1993, Kary Mullis won a Nobel Prize for discovering PCR, and several widespread efforts, including the Human Genome Project, have used the science to compile their databases.  "It really gets you when you realize someone can pick up a hair on the street and know more about you than a doctor can, conceivably," said Ellen Jorgensen, the director of Genspace.

Now Hold on There, Missy

"Orta," from the "Stranger  
Visions" exhibit.

         There are limitations.  DNA, Heather concedes, can't tell her specifically how prominent someone's chin might be or how large the nose.  And she may never know, as there is seemingly no way to track down people and match them to material they don't even know they left behind.  She used the technique to create a self-portrait, which is quite similar to her face.

        And she recognizes that some critics believe the project is an intrusion of privacy.  One scientist and one gallery turned down her proposal, she said, fearing it would cause fright among people.  At the Clocktower Gallery, Director David Weinstein said people "have this sort of double take.  They start to ask a lot of questions, like, 'How much can she really know about me from my cigarette butt?'  Then, they're questioning everything."

        Her boyfriend refuses to have his DNA analyzed, despite her persistent requests.  "The biggest problem people have is that it's such incredibly personal information," she said. "Now we're used to things like our faces surveyed by cameras.  But this is so intimate, and this is a surveillance of things we might not know about ourselves."

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Other Stuff by Heather

The "Save As" Show: 

From Spam to Porn to Art

Project statement excerpt: " 'Save As' is a series of erotically-charged images made using spam email. Each image contains tens of thousands of profane and bizarre spam emails. Each email's subject is automatically layered, one at a time, with a custom script into text mosaic of spam image."  If you can't beat it, make art out of it. Website: Spam Art

From the Stealth Wear fashion 
collection:  The Anti-drone Burqa

Project statement excerpt:  "Collectively, Stealth Wear is a vision for fashion that addresses the rise of surveillance, the power of those who surveil, and the growing need to exert control over what we are slowly losing, our privacy."  Stealth Wear also available in T-shirts, scarves and hoodies. Website: Stealth Wear

CV Dazzle:

Camouflage from Face Detection

Project statement excerpt:  "CV is a common abbreviation for computer vision, and Dazzle is a type of camouflage used during WWI to break apart the gestalt image of warships, making it hard to discern their directionality, size, and orientation.  Likewise, the goal of CV Dazzle is to break apart the gestalt of a face, or object, and make it undetectable to computer vision algorithms, in particular face detection."  Website: CV Dazzle




Performance art and wry humor:  "DNA Spoofing, or DIY Counter-Surveillance" Project statement excerpt: "As humans, we are constantly shedding genetic material in public space.  It is becoming increasingly common to use those traces for surveillance and reconstruction.  As IP spoofing makes anonymous internet browsing possible, DNA spoofing extends that potential by scrambling genetic material."  Website: DNA Spoofing



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