Don't leave your DNA out-side….the CIA might have the capability to reconstruct YOU in a 3D image!
Why else do you think that they need your fingerprints, eyes-scans and body-scans?!
Just how much of ourselves do we discard everyday? Incredible life-like 3D portraits created from just DNA found on cigarette butts and old gum
- Information artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg reconstructs 3D images of strangers using only their DNA from discarded objects
- Said finished products bear only ‘family resemblance’ to actual owner of the DNA
In today’s era, we worry about our digital and environmental footprints, but what of the genetic traces we leave behind?
One Brooklyn-based artist has pondered such information, and rendered 3D models of anonymous New Yorker’s faces by using only their DNA collected from everyday discarded items such as gum, cigarette butts, and fallen strands of hair.
Information artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg said that these renderings bear only a ‘family resemblance’ to their original owners, as it would be near-impossible to exactly replicate someone’s looks.
Here’s looking at you, kid: Information artists Heather Dewey-Hagborg collected objects from the streets of Brooklyn and created generalized 3D portraits using only their DNA; this cigarette was retrieved from the intersection of Myrtle Ave. and Himrod St. Brooklyn; its smoker is an Eastern European female
In her project, entitled ‘Stranger Visions,’ Ms Dewey-Hagborg was initially intrigued by what information people leave behind.
The original idea came to her during a therapy session. ‘I noticed there was a crack in the picture and there was a hair in the crack. I became really curious about it,’ she told MailOnline on Sunday evening. ‘And seeped in the popular culture of forensics, I really wondered what was actually possible.’
From a single strand of hair, she can extract basic hereditary traits, including hair color, eye color, ethnicity, and gender. However, her 3D renderings were based only on eye color, gender, and maternal ethnicity.
‘Age isn’t one of the factors I’m using,’ the 30-year-old Bushwick resident said. ‘It is information that is becoming increasingly available. Right now, (the renderings) are in the 20-something range. But they could be eight or 80.’
She analyzed the samples and rendered them in a program she wrote herself, and printed out the end result using a 3D printer.
The artist told Co.Exist that a lot of the actual rendering had a lot of guesswork to it.
Dominant genes, such as brown hair and brown eyes, are hard to predict. ‘There’s an 80 percent chance that this person has brown eyes and 20 percent chance they have green eyes,’ she told the website.