In Profile: Paper Genome

What does the term “genetic code” reveal about contemporary western society’s conception of life and what it means to be alive? This is the central question posed by the Paper Genome project, a daring new work that is part installation, part conceptual piece, and part performance.

In undertaking the sisyphean task of printing the human genome using two obsolete paper tape punch machines, the artist strives to link the unseen biological processes that underpin life and the mysterious digital bits that underpin the modern world. While the production of the paper genome itself references subjects as diverse as the Church-Turing conjecture, the works of Fritz Lang, and Swampman, the resulting tangle of ever-shifting paper is a profound contemplation of secular transubstantiation and of Creation more broadly, one that is entirely befitting our digital age.