Twin Screen Project - the human body and the digital world Research Part 2

Now I have gained some inspiration on the whole idea of twin screen work I want to start looking at my mind map of ideas and researching the themes behind my main idea to see how I can develop it and give it some more depth:

Idea 1) Comparing and Contrasting DNA to Computer Coding- This is my main idea at this stage because it is the one which has sparked most excitement for me in terms of how I could make a visual impact and how it could work in terms of twin screen however I can always change it and develop it if the experiments don't work out well. I have had lots of images in my head linked to this idea which I mentioned on my mind map however after thinking into them all a bit more in terms of how I would actually make them I want to approach this one in a symbolic way. I want to have human silhouettes on each side of the screen (unsure yet on the actions) and then layer one silhouette with DNA symbolism and the other with computer symbolism such as code. This is why I am now going to research into this further so I know what symbols I would use.

I found a useful science website (http://www.decodedscience.org/comparing-genetic-code-dna-binary-code/55476) which firstly taught me that computers use many different coding schemes referred to as Binary Codes. These codes all work together as a scheme of symbols and numbers which each represent digits. These codes are what then formulates commands and programmes for computers. Some programmes can be amazingly large and others can be very simplistic and only perform one function. Then it explained that DNA is an organic molecule mainly made from four base chemicals: adenine(A); guanine (G); cytosine (C); andthymine (T). Most of the information in this molecule is stored as a sequence of base pairs formed from the chemicals. DNA is formed as a double spiral, with base pairs held between two long strands. We commonly think of DNA as a ladder, with the base pairs as rungs, and the strands as the legs of the ladder. Each base pair in a DNA segment represents one of four values as the cell reads through the DNA; twice as many values as one computer bit. So as you can see its already showing us how advanced our body are over computers. Then I found this quote 'If we can fully prescribe one human’s DNA by specifying the full sequence of base pairs, plus a binary flag to express or suppress each gene, then human DNA contains about 6 Gb or 857 MB of information.' which enhances my point even further. I think DNA is more advanced in the information it holds than a computer can be through binary codes.

So when formulating this idea I now know that I want to think of a way to enhance the DNA side to show that it holds far more information than Binary Codes do. I could do this by having the symbolic shape of the DNA helix increasing in quantity and size whilst the code on the other side simply just keeps writing but never increase in size and takes longer to be written. I would have to develop this depending on how far my After Effects skills allow me to go.

I quickly found some images to help me think of the symbolic shapes I need to use in my silhouettes-

DNA

I chose a very basic helix design because I wanted it to be bold without too much detail so that it can be immediately interpreted by the viewer. Also I was having to think realistically about my skills in after effects and how I would make this shape in there so In am thinking at this stage the simpler the better.














Binary Code

As you can see Binary coder is formed of 0's and 1's and this is how people generally think when you mention computer code to them. I chose this image because I also really liked the very computer styled font which would help less educated viewers to understand what this code is representing. I feel like this may again be a struggle to work out on After Effects so I will again need to keep it simplistic but this may be better so that the audience stays focused.





Overall this research has really helped me gain more of a grip of my concept and be able to think into it in a bit more depth. I feel like it is still in very basic stages but this is because I wont be able to progress further until I start experimenting because I need to see how far my After Effects skills can take me. However I hope I will be able to create something meaningful but also very visually powerful.