“The importance of science in our daily lives may not be obvious, yet we make science-based choices every day” (Let’s talk science, 2014)

I have found this module to be quiet difficult with regards to the site and the performance requirements. I do not boast a particularly broad scientific knowledge and neither does the rest of my group, so when we were told that our piece had to be heavily related to science and Isaac Newton I became very concerned. With that in mind I was most grateful that we were able to get a tour of the Science labs and speak to Alan and Nicola about our projects. Never did I think that the science would become my favourite part of this course, oh the irony.

Although Alan could not answer our queries regarding alchemy (we knew this would be a bit of a stretch) we considered the inner workings of biology and chemical reactions within the body to help aid our research. Alan assured us that a good way to demonstrate DNA and cellular structure would be to get posters of microscopic images of things such as fingerprints and hair follicles. With the assurance that this would be a simple matter I got Alan’s contact information for later use. Posters of DNA could be hugely beneficial for our aesthetics. While the rest of the class would disagree with me (given that they were as far away from it as possible), I thought the most interesting part of the labs was their actual human skeleton. I was fascinated by the structure of the bones and the ways in which Alan and Nicola could identify features of both male and female simply through observation. The whole visit was incredibly interesting to me.

We made arrangements to meet with Alan again and discuss the types of posters we could create. The plan was to use different examples for each poster so that we could showcase the subtle differences in DNA with regards to hair colour, eye colour and skin tone. With a good camera, close up photographs of skin and eyes could easily be done ourselves. With regards to hair, Nicola was an expert in this field and had several posters that we could borrow for the performance. I was quite eager to create some of the posters ourselves and so we actually arranged to have our group meet with Alan for some fingerprinting. Apparently not only is everyone’s fingerprint different, each finger has a unique print from the rest of the hand. With this knowledge we made prints of four peoples fingers for later use. Even with only four people we had 40 unique prints that we could use for our posters.

Let’s Talk Science (2014) Why is science literacy so important? [online] Available from http://www.letstalkscience.ca/about-us/why-science [Accessed 3 May 2014].

Knowing that we want to do an instillation piece for our shop, being given the task of a weekly performance seemed initially quite difficult for our group.

Nevertheless, we persevered and developed a piece around the concept of a brain implantation designed  to recreate and replace damaged brain cells. Thinking more about how our “company” could benefit humanity we decided to work around the idea of Alzheimer’s Disease  and focus on the positive effects of ‘medical upgrades’. Obviously this involved a lot of research around alzheimers including the affected areas of the brain, current treatment options and the way in which our product could theoretically treat the disease. Based on the reviews and comments from our peers, this piece was well received and I’ll focus this blog entry on some of the comments and advice given (warning, this could be long).

• The main point was that Alzheimer’s Disease is often (though not exclusively) seen in older people. Being only around 20 ourselves the notion of us having severe Alzheimer’s  was unrealistic and we were encouraged to think of more age appropriate conditions.
• My own ‘overly happy’ persona was met with positive criticism, some saying that it gave the piece a creepy feel seeing as the situation was quite serious.
• It seemed a good idea to the class that we included a lot of research regarding the disease and the possible practical functions of the implant. It made the scene look more realistic despite futuristic undertones.
• Some suggested that we follow a more ‘vain’ route, focusing our products on things such as eye colour, age reduction skin creams and vocal enhancements (all ideas we had concocted previously but not fully explored).
• Some claimed that the idea of testing products reminded them of animal testing and made them question our morals and intentions. I feel we need to make the suggestion of vanity vs. medical aid clearer in future performances.
• It was pointed out that the audience participation was a good idea (we treated the piece as a tour of our labs) but this was lost slightly as we were only in one room.

Overall the 5 minute piece worked well, particularly with some media work, but most of our peers requested a more realistic approach and a further look into our ideas for vanity enhancements.

After visiting the science labs last week our initial idea of “selling the perfect human” has suddenly become a lot more plausible to me. With the working title of “Human. Inc” our group is currently working towards a performance with links in both biology and chemistry as well as alchemy. What most fascinated me about the labs was the biological possibilities for our performance, from things as simple as microscopic images lining the walls as example selections (which we were assured was entirely possible and something I am very interested in pursuing) right up to the more complicated questions like, how does the brain record and play memories?
Having decided on our idea (and it being confirmed by Jeremy) I am now looking into how we can make this performance as realistic as possible by looking into the real science of ‘making a human’. Focusing on Human Robotics (robots specifically designed to enhance human performance) and DNA manipulation I am attempting to learn as much as possible regarding this delicate science and compile a would be script for our group.

Useful links and articles:

HRI 2013:  http://humanrobotinteraction.org/2013/
SGI DNA:      http://www.sgidna.com/
Preventing aging and death:    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/business/in-pursuit-of-longevity-a-plan-to-harness-dna-sequencing.html?_r=0

I know very little about shopping.
I know even less about science.

So I’ve been trying to do some research into the different kinds of laboratories and scientists we could look at under this huge umbrella. It got me thinking about what kind of sciences interest me. I started thinking about computer science, genetics, chemistry and alchemy and what elements humans are made of (primarily this is oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus). Linking this with an idea that was mentioned last lesson about genetically growing or modifying embryos, I thought about prosthetic limbs and the state of computer science.  It’s not something many of us give much thought to but from a retail point of view it is in fact an ever growing industry. With this in mind we could develop a piece regarding this enhancement in prosthetics and play on the idea of selling or “upgrading” people or parts.