March, 2017
«I'm Searching For You»
Audio installation
There is the name of a non-existent person in the field «Father» of my birth certificate. My mother and her grandmother fabricated it. I don't know who is my father, I even don't know his real name. I have no photo of him. Though I still want to have a father. I started thinking how I can find him, if I haven't got any information. Finally I understood that information about him is saved in me, in my DNA. I have transformed it into sound that helps to fill the void within myself.
To be honest, I didn't make a real DNA test cause it's too expensive for me. Now I'm searching for grants and opportunities to work with real scientists on this theme, and explore possibilities to calculate DNA of my father from my DNA and DNA of my mother. On the other hand, most important thing is the legend itself for me as an artist. Cause it's about future when all the passwords will be stored at the body level, in cells. (Like we are using face or fingerprints for unlocking phones and computers, confirming payments). All people have similar DNA structure in general, thus similar sound. That's why I took DNA sequence example from the internet and simulated how it can be sonificated.
My partner Stas Sumarokov helped me to make a prototype of the algorithm that transforms DNA sequence to sound with TouchDesigner software. Nucleobases names reminded me note names, so my interpretation was like: Adenine — A, Guanine — G, Сytosine — C. Thymine goes for T and I've decided it will be the sign of silence, because in russian the word "silence" will be "Tishina". This interpretation opens possibility to create a website where anyone can upload DNA sequence of his or her lost parent in text format and transform it into sound.
Also I'm thinking about series of images with my face modified as if I was a man. I want to imagine how my father could look like and what we have in common.
