plastic petri dish with agar, blood, saliva and soil
Nature and the Figure
erasure text, gel electrophoresis process
Nature and the Figure is a poetic experiment that combines the biological process of translation with erasure form in poetic practice. In molecular biology, genetics translation is the process in which cellular ribosomes create proteins. Messenger RNA is decoded to produce a specific polypeptide. The result of this process allows the mRNA to be “read” by the ribosome. This entire process is a part of gene expression. In recent studies I have found myself interested in the relationship between language and the body, both metaphorically and physically. Nature and the Figure combines the tangible, written word with hard sciences, linking two different humanistic compositions. What we are anatomically composed of and what we are romantically composed of. The chosen words in the erasure process act as the specific polypeptides and the measurements in the image above represent the spaces in-between those chosen polypeptides. The graph as a whole then represents the negative space in the gene sequence / text paragraph. The process allows for our textual sentimentality to be manipulated concisely into a biological science in order to bring together everything that we are and choose to be made of.
*please find the accompanying document for this project in the Academic section of this website*