Commissioned by Dr. Susan Fisher at OSU for her biology course, this piece will use Max/MSP to generate music based on DNA segments. The music will not have a one-to-one correspondence with segments of the DNA code, instead it will use the process of DNA translation as a metaphor for the compositional process. To learn more about how the sounds were generated, check out the Data to Sound section. Details about using these sounds to create music can be found under Sound to Music.

Problem
This piece will need to represent, in a meaningful way, the structure and function of DNA. The purpose of this representation is two-fold. As a metaphor it will serve as an instructional aid for the instruction of basic biological concepts. As an artistic endeavor it will explore the relationship between the rigid chromosomal code dictating our physical design and function and the intangible consciousness that seems to belie the very code from which each of us, and indeed every living organism, is built.

Concept
My conceptual inspiration is drawn from Richard Dawkins’ book, The Selfish Gene. The core idea in Dawkins’ writing is that the primary agent of evolutionary development and selection is the gene. Our genes began their existence as simple chemical compounds with the improbable ability to replicate themselves. These replicators gradually became more complex and their chemical resources became scarce, forcing them to compete for their survival. Dawkins argues that the two primary survival mechanisms became the development of protective barriers and the eventual cooperation between replicators, which led to the development of colonies of replicators working together for their survival. Whatever became of the replicators? Where are they now?

 

Now they swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control. They are in you and in me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines.*

 

There is an inherent tension between this explanation for our existence and the way that we experience our existence. Genetic code does not account for emotion, creativity, friendship, or any of the other subtleties of our day to day existence. It is this tension that I hope to explore.

[continues]

*Richard Dawkins. The Selfish Gene (Oxford University Press, 1976), pg. 21