Story and scene: using gene expression as a model for objective cinematic storytelling

abstract: While often thought of as completely separate fields, biology and filmmaking share a common idea, the idea of raw material and interpretation. In both fields, there is an interpretation of raw material to create some final product—in biology, DNA is interpreted, or rather, expressed into proteins while in filmmaking, raw footage is interpreted into a video sequence. As such, I developed a Python computer program as part of an installation art video piece that generates a new original film every time it is run, the theory behind which is based in eukaryotic gene expression. To express a gene into its final protein product, it is transcribed and modified via RNA splicing, from which the resulting mRNA is translated into an amino acid sequence. Similarly, this work emulates and distorts this organic process within the program construct and investigates the formation of story as something integral to our human condition.

read my paper here.

Presented May 24th, 2014 in Angwin, CA at Pacific Union College for Honors Program thesis requirements.