Twist Bioscience Collaborates With Beyond Earth to Launch Artwork Stored in DNA Into Space

Twist Bioscience Corporation and Beyond Earth, an artist collective, announced a project to store high-resolution artworks in DNA to be launched to low Earth orbit and the Moon.

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Beyond Earth artists that will contribute work to the project include: Elena Soterakis, New York, NY; Richelle Gribble, Los Angeles, CA; and Yoko Shimizu, Linz, Austria and Tokyo, Japan.

In the ‘To Space, From Earth’ Capsule, select artworks made by members of Beyond Earth reference life on Earth and the current challenges we face referencing human population growth, consumption and degradation, and preservation of Earth’s biodiversity. Artworks reflect on the current geological age of the Anthropocene, where human activity has a dominant effect on climate and the environment. The artists chose to store this message of human impact in synthetic DNA, which is present in nearly all living organisms, to symbolize life on Earth. These artworks serve as a visual record of this current time; they reflect challenges of today to inspire new approaches for a better future. Beyond Earth chose Twist Bioscience to encode the artwork in DNA, as the company is leading the field of DNA storage.

To store the artworks in DNA, they are digitized and converted from binary data to the DNA bases represented by the letters A, T, G and C. The encoded DNA sequences are synthesized with company’s silicon-based platform and preserved in a specialized capsule. DNA is nature’s oldest and most resilient storage method; no energy or maintenance is required to preserve it; it is ultra-dense and hence compact; and lasts hundreds of thousands of years making it the ultimate time capsule for any digitized artwork. For these reasons, to Space, from Earth will endure the test of time and serve as an important record of human history and the biosphere.

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Beyond Earth will co-create with space, revealing how spaceflight transforms and evolves artworks, and how space preserves or alters their message over time. Beyond Earth is not only exploring the unique storage capabilities of DNA, but also testing data retrieval when DNA is exposed to the harsh conditions of space.

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About Beyond Earth:
It is an all-female international transdisciplinary artist collective. Its mission is to explore the frontiers of art, space, and biology through space-bound artworks. Such projects co-create with space, explore planetary themes and expand possibilities of artistic expression beyond Earth. The firm utilizes scientific and artistic research to create and deploy artworks in space. It aims to uncover the vastness of creativity to represent a plurality of perspectives in space and envision the future of Earth. As artists, it believes that the sky is not the limit and creativity is boundless, accelerating culture and vision that transcends us. It believes that the future of humanity expands the boundaries of Earth and beyond. Its global initiatives allow individuals, companies, and organizations to connect and explore together – advancing our notion of space and our home planet.

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