A collection of pieces from the space project in Gareth Jones's Spatial Dynamics class.
Personal Space #1: An abstract representation of the effects of having your personal space invaded. The protrusions on the exterior represent the offensive mode one goes into when their space is violated, while the interior protrusions represent the threat that one feels to their safety. Personal Space #1 focuses on the threat to one's back and chest.
Personal Space #2: A second wearable garment inspired by the invasion of personal space. Personal Space #2 focuses on the threat to one's upper body and neck, with a spiked protrusion pointing directly at the wearer's throat.
DNA: For my representational piece, I carried out an investigation into the space contained within DNA molecules, as I am fascinated with the fact that DNA can take up only microscopic amounts of space when coiled upon itself put can reach all the way to Pluto and back multiple times in its linear form. For this project, I used a document from the Human Genome Project which provided all of the base pairs in human chromosome number 1 as they were sequenced by the project. From this document, I handmade long strands of accurate DNA out of bristol paper base pair sets. The final piece to represent this investigation included 3 small plexiglass boxes filled with these DNA strands, a large string installation to represent the space needed to hold all of the information from an average chromosome, and a sculpture created from the 4 base pairs that shows the shape of a chromosome in its center.
This plexiglass box contains the first 250 base pairs of human chromosome number one and, when uncoiled, is over 20 feet long. However, this linear space can be compressed neatly into a 1.5"x 2.5"x 5.5" plexiglass box. The large string box installation is coupled with this box, as the large string box represents the amount of space that must be filled with these small boxes in order to represent all of the DNA in just one chromosome.
This medium sized plexiglass box contains a DNA strand that is exactly 2 meters long: the length of uncoiled DNA contained in one cell at actual scale. When this 2 meter strand is compressed, it can fit into a box that is only 1.5"x 2.5"x 2"
This small plexiglass box contains a DNA strand exactly 5 centimeters long: the length of the DNA in an average chromosome at actual scale. This box is only 1.5"x 2.5"x 0.25".
DNA: As the second part of my investigation into the space within DNA, I constructed a large outline of a box in the display space. The box represents the amount of the tall plexiglass boxes from the first portion of this investigation which would be needed to represent an entire chromosome's worth of base pairs. The tallest plexiglass box from the first part of this investigation contains 250 base pairs so in order to represent the 65,000,000 base pairs in the average chromosome, you would need to fill this large string box (8'x14'x27.7') with 260,000 of those tall plexiglass boxes (1.5"x2.5"x5.5").
DNA: A modular piece created from the 4 base pairs of DNA to show a chromosome in the negative space.
Fractal Sculpture: This piece consists of 3 different sizes of my fractal seed shapes, combined in a structured yet organic fashion to create the final piece.
Growth of a Baby in the Womb: A quick bristol experiment portraying the growth of a baby in a womb, including an abstract uterus, ovaries, and 6 layers representing stages of development.
Thanks for viewing my work!
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