Artist Creates 3D Printed Portraits of Random People Based on DNA Samples Found on Cigarette Butts Found on Streets
Technology and art combined
Heather Dewey-Hagborg turned discarded DNA into something unsettlingly personal, and the result looks like art and science fiction at the same time.
Using cigarette butts, chewing gum, and stray hairs found on streets and subways, she built 3D portraits of strangers from the genetic traces they left behind. The project, called Stranger Visions, combines lab work, custom software, and 3D printing to suggest what a person might look like from a tiny sample.
It is a strange reminder that even the smallest thing can leave a lasting trace. Read on.
Installation at Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site
Heather Dewey-HagborgSept 6, 2014
Heather Dewey-HagborgInstallation at Laznia Museum of Contemporary Art in Gdansk, Poland
Heather Dewey-Hagborg
Dewey-Hagborg exhibits the 3D portraits alongside a box containing information gained from DNA testing, the original chewed gum or cigarette butt, and a photograph of the location where she discovered it.
Sample box for NYC sample 4
Heather Dewey-Hagborg
And for a totally different kind of real-life chaos, check out 100 historical moments that prove the past was anything but boring.
New York: Sample 4
1/6/13 12:20 PMMyrtle Ave. and Himrod St., Brooklyn, NYMtDNA Haplogroup: T2b (European)SRY Gene: absentGender: Femalers12913832: AALikely Eye Color: Brownrs4648379: CTSlightly smaller nose sizers6548238: TTSlightly lower odds for obesity
Heather Dewey-Hagborg
New York: Sample 2
Myrtle Ave. and Himrod St., Brooklyn, NYMtDNA Haplogroup: T2b (European)SRY Gene: absentGender: Femalers12913832: AALikely Eye Color: Brownrs4648379: CTSlightly smaller nose sizers6548238: TTSlightly lower odds for obesity
Heather Dewey-Hagborg
New York: Sample 3
MtDNA Haplogroup: L2a1 (African)SRY Gene: presentGender: Malers12913832: AAEye Color: Brownrs4648379: CCTypical nose sizers6548238: CCTypical odds for obesity
Heather Dewey-Hagborg
New York: Sample 6
MtDNA Haplogroup: D1 (Native American, South American)SRY Gene: presentGender: Malers12913832: AAEye Color: Brownrs4648379: CCTypical nose sizers6548238: CCTypical odds for obesity
Heather Dewey-Hagborg
New York: Sample 7
MtDNA Haplogroup: L1b (Central or West African)SRY Gene: presentGender: Malers12913832: AAEye Color: Brownrs4648379: CCTypical nose sizers6548238: CCTypical odds for obesity
Heather Dewey-Hagborg
East Hampton: Sample 7
MtDNA Haplogroup: M48 (North East Indian)SRY Gene: absentGender: Femalers12913832: AAEye Color: Brownrs4648379: CCTypical nose sizers6548238: CCTypical odds for obesity
Heather Dewey-Hagborg
Watch Heather Dewey-Hagborg talk about her artistic process:
Technology is impressive, right? Who knows what scientists will be able to do in a couple of decades?
Maybe they will be able to grow a complete human from a single sample. Scary, right?
It's not hard to imagine a future where people won't throw away cigarette butts, plastic coffee cups, or anything they've touched into public trash bins. Instead, they'll carry them around until they reach a safe spot where they can dispose of them properly, because if they don't, someone might take their DNA sample and create their clone.
That is one way to make people think twice about littering.
Want more uncanny “twin” reunions, read about people who found their twins without a single DNA test.
