Biostory

Aula Future was accepted to an artist residency program with the University City Science Center in Philadelphia. Our facilitators Marco Locatelli and Genefer Baxter worked with biotechnology company Integral Molecular in what is called the BioArt Residency program.

This program allows artists to explore the realm of biotechnology. Genefer and Marco worked alongside the scientists at Integral in an interdisciplinary manner, crisscrossing ideas from the art and science domains. The program ran on-site from August to November 2019, and an exhibition titled Biostory will be released as soon as COVID-19 regulations allow it.

Overview

Biostory is a two-part art installation to be featured at the Esther Klein Gallery in Philadelphia, PA in 2021, as part of the Science Center’s artist residency program.

The goal of the exhibition is to 1) create awareness of the value of biometric data and 2) illustrate a sustainable model for handling that personal data.

We’ve named a person’s biological dataset a “Biostory”. Your Biostory is a personal narrative told through biometric data, specifically coming from the immune system. Our installation visualizes that narrative in an attempt to re-humanize datasets.

Concept

10 Biostories of anonymous donors (+ the artists) will visualize how our immune systems uniquely respond to antigens.

In sequencing (e.g. digitizing) a person’s immune response, the data becomes available to researchers and can help in discovering cures to diseases. Thus, each Biostory visually represents both a humanized portrait of the data as well as a contribution of valuable information to science. Visuals are generated from real data from a public sequence library. Each art frame includes its own voice track, narrating the possible events the subject may have lived through.

The second component of the installation is the Biolog data bank, a fictitious biotech company of the future. Event guests will walk through an “onboarding” session, where they will experience what the process of investing in their biometric data as an asset might look and feel like.

Furthermore, each Biostory is a non-fungible token (NTF) that lives on the blockchain. This token system ensures that its source is encrypted and that the data is secure. In this futuristic scenario, when a research facility purchases a Biostory, each individual is compensated for their contribution in the form of a cryptocurrency.

The installation reminds both scientists and the general public that this data comes from real people with hopes, dreams, and emotions and that their biology is precious.