Digital DNA, 2005. Public art project (permanent). Palo Alto, CA.

Digital DNA (Site specific) – Permanente Public art project In collaboration with Adriana Varella   Commissioned by the city of Palo Alto Public Art Commission Site Lytton Plaza – University Av.& Emerson St. – Palo Alto, CA is a democratic place, a place for protest. We’ve seen several public manifestations there. We know that several important demonstrations against the Vietnam War and for civil liberties of the 60s/70s happened there. It is a place where people get together to think, act and express them. It is a place of freedom, a political space – PUBLIC. It is important for every city to have neutral spaces, non-territories, which belong to everybody, where artists can play. Those are the reasons why we were so adamant about installing Digital DNA there. About In the public art project Digital DNA We have been thinking about the city, the origins, the history, the characteristics of the Silicon Valley. We call it “site specific” in contemporary arts language. Digital DNA is a project in public art that tries to integrate the electronics origin conceptual space with one synthetic and organic form. The project Digital DNA is built based on a frame that gives it an ovoid form. The overall size is 7ft high by 5ft in its maximum diameter. On the outer side, bare circuit boards are attached to the fiber frame. The final weight is about 300 lbs. Digital DNA also mixes languages (Arabic, Russian, French, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Etc). It goes deeper into branching, but above all into the origins of what comes to be the adventure of computers. Therefore, through phrases like: “Circuits of power”, “ideological circuits”, “warfare circuits”, “borderless circuits”, “sexual circuits”, “colonizing circuits”, “genetic circuits, etc, trying to simplistically verify, even if it is a glimpse of consciousness, one of the main tools-objects of our contemporary world. Digital DNA sole intention is a momentary reflection about what we have been building, researching and planning for our software and hardware thinkers…. They are the ones who determine what users will be extracting form their computers (except for the hackers maybe). We hope the art piece could bring some reflection. The intention is to trigger the “consciousness elevation” for people passing by the square. Let’s see people’s reaction. We know some like to reflect and analyze. We don’t want to preach truths, just trigger ideas. High-tech Being Palo Alto in the heart of the high-tech industry, everybody would expect some active electronic device coming from me. Furthermore, We are multimedia artists who work basically with video art, video installation and photography, which would imply the technological element in our art. Not only we used to do that, but also our first public art project was about a multimedia installation. The work entitled “resonance” was installed in public buildings; bringing live camera images from inside the building to the sidewalks. The private matters were made public and the concept of surveillance was twisted. Now, the public was observing the politicians and bureaucrats. However, we came with the other side of technology. Not it’s functionality, but it’s impact in our environment. We approached the recycling of electronics waste. Where are the skeletons and bones of our technological infrastructure going? Millions of parts become obsolete every day. Being a difficult material to be recycled, what is happening to them? Project Scientists are doing the reading of the genetic for everything nowadays. Therefore, we, as an artist, decided to decipher the genetic code of computers. Our biggest intention was to trigger some uneasiness, creativity and imagination on the public. We think we are getting there based on the comments that we got from people who saw the work: -    “It’s an egg because here is the birthplace of the silicon revolution…” -    “It’s a Colombo’s egg”… -    “It reminds me the bomb that was dropped in Hiroshima, -    “I think you are both right…. It symbolizes the imperialistic domination through bombs and technology, I saw a board with the inscription “circuits of power”” -    “I’m sorry but I think that you are all wrong…. It looks like a proposition that the artist is making to the scientists who created clones and in-vitro insemination…. Now they could develop babies inside eggs freeing women from their biological constraints…making people close that ducks and penguins….” -    “It reminds me of the Faberge eggs given as a gift to the Russian imperial family”. We found it all great. We don’t care for critics or appreciations. The work is there and the creative process that happens inside people’s minds is what really matters to me.