DNA Outrage...

I remembered something vaguely, from the london exhibition, about how your DNA information is stored in police records once they get a hold of it, and how they still keep it after you have been released, and I was curious how people reacted to this. Personally, I would say that DNA is something personal to the individual and its invading personal lives, so its clearly wrong to keep a record of your DNA without your permission.

I found these couple of articles about how DNA can be stored in a database without the person even knowing about it...

The government has your babies DNA...,

DNA Outrage over Seven-month-old baby..

These articles were quite informing to me, as I wasn't even aware of such issues till now. You also get to see the two sides of how people react to such cases. On one side there will be people who agree with DNA info. being stored in databases, with arguments such as, '...the DNA database is a good thing, it doesn't affect us day by day unless we do something wrong, the problem is that it has the image of a ''criminal'' database..'. Then on the other side, there will be people who disagree with this, calling the government paranoid, and insecure.

DNA testing...

I was researching DNA sampling on the internet and found this really cool website where your DNA is turned into a piece of artwork. It's basically your self portrait but in DNA form, how awesome is that! They also do DNA portraits of pets, for those people that are really attached to their pets I guess, and also 'Kiss Portraits'.

DNA11

Looking at this, the thought of getting my own DNA sample turned into something like this will be cool too, and very informative in my research. I could get my own DNA testing done and maybe focus my FMP on that? ...or just to help me understand myself more to go in a much more personal path with this project. I heard that there are places online where you can order DNA testing kits, maybe I should do that... more info. needed about that now!

Reflection on London trip...

From the trip to the Wellcome venue, I took a good amount of pictures to help me with my ideas for my F.M.P. I tired to take pictures that covered quite a few concepts on DNA, and not cornering just one topic. On the floor above from the 8 rooms was another exhibit to do with DNA.

There was a section about obesity, and this model above was what blew me away the most in that section. It was very disgusting to look at, with the over grown body and the red spots that covered it. It was titled, 'I can't help the way I feel', explaining that the '...work lies an interest in a possibility of the emotional landscape of the body becoming manifest in its surface.' The body acts as a metaphor of the way in which we become incapacitated by the emotional landscape in which we live and over which we have little control. By John Isaacs.

Different installments were added in the exhibition, including 3D sculptures to an animation about evolution, consisting of the stages of a monkey transforming into a man. This installment of a basic DNA structure was very interesting to look at, as it glowed with a florescent red light.

The Library of the Human Genome

These volumes contained a complete copy of the human genetic sequence and as you can see for yourself, that's a LOT of data. The text in the books was just made up of four letters. The letters represent the four chemical building blocks of DNA that make up the 'recipe' to build and operate a person. The DNA in every cell is spilt into pieces called chromosomes. These are numbered in size from 1 to 22, except the sex chromosomes, called X and Y. The sequence is a composite, sampled from a few people. If your DNA is compared with the 3000 million letters in the volumes, there will be about ten million differences!

Some pages in those volumes contain the letter 'n'. where the DNA has structures or sequences that make it impossible for modern tech. to read it properly, which means the full sequence hasn't even been decoded yet.

There was also information about cloning, where there was showcased some poop from Dolly the Sheep, and a big section on DNA testing. That was interesting and very education, as I learned how people can take a DNA sample of themselves and decode their DNA to tell them what their background consists of. We learned how DNA can be helpful in things like crime solving, and also being able to tell if two people are related or not by DNA comparison.

29 Jan, 2010: London Trip (8 Rooms, 9 Stories)

We went to London, to visit the Wellcome Collection, where the venue was holding an exhibition about Identity - 8 rooms and 9 individual stories in those rooms, looking at things like DNA fingerprinting, gender and sexuality, race and prejudice and twins.

The room that interested me the most in the exhibition was Samuel Pepys room, showcasing extraordinary diaries of an extraordinary human being, Clive Wearing. Clive Wearing was a successful musician who suffers a very bad case of amnesia, which started in 1985, causing him to be left in a world consisting of just a moment, with no recollection of the past or a future to look ahead to. His intellect is virtually intact, he perceives his world like any other, but as soon as he perceives it, its gone for him, fading away... like in a time vacuum... trapped like a prisoner.

Wearing thinks he has been awake for about two minutes, thats why he records the fact when he has woken up, and that he should write it down, like telling the world it is something important that must be acknowledged. In the diary he writes, 'I am now completely awake for the first time', and the whole diary is filled entries saying almost the same thing, of his first awakeness. He looks back, and he denies that he ever wrote in the diary, saying he was unconscious when he wrote in it, and that NOW is the time he is truly awake, that why he crosses out previous entries, saying that he had no knowledge of the book at all, claiming that he has never even seen the book before.

One of the things that characterizes Clive Wearings day is that he continually makes entries in the diaries, but it is of no intention to keep the diaries, it is in a compulsion, just to note down the event of him waking up, which is momentous for him. Also, as he writes a new entry down, he underlines the 'first time', because as he doesn't remember the previous entries, hes saying something about ego, about identity, 'I know now, I know this moment now, I have no memory of the previous entry, and you have to take notice of that', the pages of the diary have been written in a frenzied way, to say it is really important to take notice of this, just like how a prisoner would scratch the fact of his existence on the wall, saying that he was there, and he was alive then, and the world has to know this, and thats what Clive does with his diary entries, as he is the best eye witness for his condition.

Illustration by Tim Durning.

What's amazing about Clive Wearings illness is that, he is still able to remember how to play the piano, sing and recognize music, like it's engraved in his brain. It's just like how they say, you'll never forget how to ride a bike, same thing but with music!

Feed Night: Jonathan Barnbrook

28th January, 201o

Today I met the man himself, Jonathan Barnbrook!, through the feed night organized by the feed team!

Apologies for the bad quality pics, the flash didn't make a difference whatsoever, need a better camera than to rely on my 8mp phone cam.

So, like I was saying, finally got to meet one of my main interests in the graphic design industry, as I really admire his typographic work, but of course you hear everyone saying things like that so I wont ramble on about how good a graphic designer he is! Plus, he was actually a nice guy, very honest and clear about his work.

He talked about his work, and reasons behind his feelings towards politics. He said, there was a point in his life where he was tired of working for other people, and just wanted to work for himself and I found that very inspiring. He also said, and if I can remember well, that when you produce work that is not what people are used to, that reveals the truth, some companies just wont take it! That need to tell the truth to people comes from him working with Adbusters, where 'a person can be true to him/herself'. Things like naming one of his fonts after a serial killer, raised quite a fuss with people too, but I don't think a bunch of wining people will stop him from expressing himself through his work.

Any-who, I did learn a lot from the dude, and I mean A LOT, its not like you get to meet Barnbrook everyday. An advantage about working in the Feed studio, we got the chance to walk through Birmingham with him, before the feed night started. We looked at Type found around us and how it communicates to others, anyways.. thats what I thought we were doing. Then our little walk ended when we got to St. Chads Cathedral, the place was beautiful, filled with history.

These are some of the images that made it through all that blur and movement and bad lighting, and these are some interesting ones too, which I very much like. I particularly love the last two images, with the type going in a curve with the architecture, its quite beautiful lettering to be honest.

When we got to the cathedral Barnbrook told us that Augustus Pugin, the guy who built the place in 1841, got so 'into' his projects that he worked to every detail, overworking if you want to call it. He did both the interior and exterior of the building, every mark you saw he designed individually. Unfortunately the poor bloke died at 40 because of the dedication and passion for his work. The type in and out of the building had lasted all this time, but parts of some typography had deteriorated, but that had an unusual beauty to it.

Coming towards the FMP...

DNA

Our Final Major Project was finally revealed to be based on the word DNA, and the focus of this project is our response to the word! I want to research in the area of genetics, as that gets me really interested in DNA, like how there is a separate language for genome consisting of just 4 letters! It's also amazing to know about your own heritage, like finding out that your not just a brown indian guy, but a mix of other backgrounds too!

I don't want to narrow my thinking down this early in the stage about what exactly I wanna do, but having a clear idea, which can be changed later is good enough for me right now.

I have been thinking about, in the area of genes, how things are passed on to generation from generation, like family illnesses to body features, I find it very intriguing, and its something anyone and everyone can relate to!

Radio 1 Animation

This is my final animation for a set brief on Radio 1! The set length of the video was 30 seconds, so I managed to meet that, nothing more, nothing less. The typographic approach to the animation makes it simple and straightforward, and the vibrant colours are there to attract the audiences attention.

And these screen grabs with a well layed out page in InDesign, makes my first portfolio page! Showcasing the best bits in my animation.

A-Z around Birmingham...

Using the photos we took of typography in Birmingham from yellow week, here is an alphabet we created, that should contain a full A-Z, 'cept of course there is the 'X' missing, there was no X in the photos we had taken, pretty bad 'cause it was going very smoothly! but hey, atleast every other letter is there!