rrDNA

rDNA: a metaphor for collage

The Recombinate … 

Recombinant DNA, or rDNA, is a synthetic variety of DNA created by combining DNA sequences that would not normally occur together. Science Gateway uses a metaphor of collage to describe the method of creating one new DNA sequence from fragments of two existing ones:

The actual editing, or insertion process, is painstaking, for it involves manipulating incredibly tiny pieces of incredibly tiny organisms. But the process can be explained in terms of editing a written text: scissors and ‘glue’ are used to ‘cut’ and ‘paste.’

Science Gateway

A bio-technician searches for useful existing material to “collage” into new organic material. She is doing what a collage artist does with visual imagery: changing the “meaning” of the original material by re-contextualizing it, thereby creating new “meaning.”

The new media artist uses the same metaphor. Pixels and electrons, existing images and sounds, videos and texts are “cut” and “pasted.” Clicking and dragging, keyboard commands, and menu selections are the “scissors” and “glue.” This project asks you to create a new work of art using this rDNA metaphor. New media artist Randall Packer invented a new meaning for rDNA: for us, the acronym now stands for Recombinant Deconstruction-Navigation-Alteration.

According to Packer, rDNA involves Navigating the Internet and collecting material using search methods as a means to Deconstruct the way we ordinarily use the web or think about a topic. The material is spliced together like strands of DNA creating a new organism and Altering meanings by taking them out of their original context. The new work, which Packer calls a Recombinant, expresses ideas about the Internet as a ubiquitous cloud of combinable information.

… and the Readymade

Read about the two Duchamp readymades whose images we’re using as icons for this project at the links below their images. Then we’ll start the project by indulging in a bit of deconstruction.

Deconstruction (Concept)

Brainstorm #1: mind mapping

In this part of the project, we will use a brainstorming tool known as a mind map to deconstruct your randomly assigned keyword. Much more than a list of words, a mind map develops visual relationships in a manner that emulates non-linear brain processes… useful for shaking the artist out of creating a “book report” approach to a topic.

• Visit Mind Map Art to see examples of this process.
• Using a Google Jamboard, create a mind map based on your keyword. Jamboard is a nice, quick way to generate a mind map without the process getting in the way. You can quickly create text, draw lines, pop in a sticky note, and even throw in an image on the web using an onboard Google Image Search function. See an example of techniques here.
• Develop at least one hundred branches on your mind map “tree” … it’s not that hard!
• Just don’t judge the words that come to mind. This is a map of what comes to mind!

You can use ANY of the one hundred words or phrases you develop on your map in the next step. You don’t even have to use your original keyword!  

Navigation (Iteration)

Time to navigate the web! Using the keywords and combinations of words pulled out of your mind map to conduct a broad deconstruction search on the web. Search and download images, videos, animations, and sounds. Using folders and good file-naming strategies, organize your materials in a useful way. Keep bookmarks and/or a list of URLs for citing sources. NEVER download material without remembering and referencing the source.

Below we’ll describe some tips for saving a variety of things on the web. Although the processes described here can be done in practically identical ways in practically any browser, we tend to use Chrome in the studios, and thus any process references are specific to that browser.

Saving images

• Remember that the image in the browser search may be a lower-resolution preview, AND you need to get the source URL anyway, so don’t download from the image search. Download from the source page. 
• Two options for downloading: drag onto the desktop or Right-Click > Save Image As… to open a dialog box.
• In a Mac, in the Save As dialog box, always hit the blue arrow button to the right of the file name field, as this will expand the dialog to include navigation tools. 
• Mac will want to download into the Downloads folder, but this is clumsy on networked machines. Whenever practical, save it to a new folder on the Desktop.
• Don’t rename your files just yet. You will want the original names for citation purposes, even if they are clumsy.

Saving animations

Animations are found in the GIF format and (sometimes) as looping videos:

• In a Google image search, select Tools > Type > Animated as an advanced search. Often just including the keyword “gif” in the search alongside your other keyword(s) will help. 
• Sites like Giphy, Tenor,Reddit have more GIFs than you can see in several lifetimes. 
• See How to Find the Perfect GIF at Hubspot for more suggestions.
• Don’t forget the URL! 

Saving video

Sources for video include the following:

• YouTube | Obviously, but don’t look for the download button. YT terms-of-service are absurdly prim about enabling downloading capabilities for remix artists, but there’s hope… see below.
• Vimeo | The smart man’s version of YT. Video authors will sometimes allow direct downloads.
• Others | This Wikipedia article lists other video hosting services like DailyMotion.
• Plug-ins | Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and other modern browsers all have plug-ins that allow the download and conversion of video formats to a useful MP4 file. You can use them on your personal computer or laptop. Sadly, in our networked school environment, it’s not possible to install these.
• Media Commons Free Media Library | Go to the Video section here and find sources like Internet Archive, NASA, Videvo, and others.
• Avoid changing the filename, and bookmark the URL of the file for attribution. 

The gray area around YT downloads

Plug-ins, sites like KeepVid, and various URL modifiers like replacing the “http://www.” with “dl” or “ss” or “pwn” to jump to a downloading site have been playing a cat-and-mouse game with YT for years. The reality is that downloading this way violates YT terms of service but in a rather gray way. Around 2016 YT clarified (or, some will argue, stirred) the mud somewhat by saying that you need the express permission of the person who uploaded the content. Because YT started supporting CC licensing around 2011, anything with a CC license has this permission. My advice: search YT for CC content. This whole controversy remains a point of contention between IP and free-culture factions; see PCMag’s article on video download software and helper sites.

A screen-capture hack

One way to grab a segment of video is by using a screen recorder. On the Mac, there are two ways to capture screens but they do have limits. On a PC, you can try the Xbox Game Bar.

Saving audio

There are a few sources on the web where you can find free sounds:

• FindSounds | Sound effects. Looking for a car crash? A burp? A footstep? Look no further.
• Free Music Archive | Soundtrack music. FMA contains files of any genre, sub-genre, or sub-sub-genre of music or sound. Although using Creative Commons Share-Alike licensed work requires you to license your work the same way, you can avoid YouTube copyright hassles by using this resource.
• Download the fileRight-Click > Open With > QuickTime Player.app.  This is important because Mac wants to open sound files in iTunes and you never want to go there. 
• Avoid changing the filename, and bookmark the URL of the file for attribution.

Saving URLs

As a cultural creator, NEVER save an asset without also saving the URL for citation purposes. There are scripts you can add to some browsers to do this automatically, but on our networked machines, saving is a two-part process: saving the image and saving the URL.

There are several ways to save URLS:

• Some folks Right-Click > Copy Image URL and paste it into a Word or Google doc.
• Some will copy the URL and paste it into the comments section of the Info window of the file. To access this, place the cursor over the image thumbnailRight-Click > Get Info to open, then find the Spotlight Comments: field at the top.
• My preferred way because it involves the least multiple copy-pasting:
  • In the address field, find the star icon at the far right and click to open the Bookmarks dropout.
  • Click on the Folder options and select Other Bookmarks…
  • When finished with your saving, select Menu > Bookmarks > Bookmark Manager to open the bookmarks in a new browser window.
  • At the upper right, click on Organize>Export Bookmarks to HTML File…
  • In the dialog box, choose Desktop as the destination and click Save.
  • Both the names of the files and their URLs are saved in one convenient HTML document without a single copy-paste!

Quick pre-editing techniques

Cropping images and trimming video or sound might be possible in your app, but often it makes sense to pre-edit. You probably don’t want that watermark in the corner of the image, and you likely don’t need a sequence of opening credits on a video. If you need to crop an image, use Preview. If you need to trim a video or sound clip, use Quicktime. KEYNOTE HINT: even though Keynote allows you to “trim” a movie duration, when the slideshow is exported to video it will run the whole movie, so you MUST trim all video outside Keynote!

IMAGES

• Double-click on the image thumbnail or name to open in Preview.
• In the options bar at the top of the Preview window, choose Select > Rectangular Selection.
• Click-hold-drag to create a marquee… you’ll see gray dot handles and “marching ants” defining your selection.
• Adjust your selection if needed:
  • To move, place the cursor over the selection to see a hand, then click-hold-drag to move around.
  • To resize, place the cursor over a gray handle and click-hold-drag to resize. To maintain a square aspect ratio, hold Shift as you drag.
• When ready, hit Command+K.
• Go to Menu>File>Save As and save with a new name to avoid overwriting the original.

ANIMATION

• Use EZGif as a browser-based editor. It has a simple and intuitive user interface, just upload and follow the directions. ADOBE EXPRESS ALERT: Use EZGif to convert your GIF animation to video, since (as of this writing) Express won’t play GIFS!

VIDEO

• Right-Click > Open With > Quicktime Player.app over the video thumbnail or name to ensure it opens in Quicktime.
• Select Menu > Edit > Trim and you will see the playback console turn into a timeline.
• Drag the yellow slider bars from the left and/or the right to trim, then click the yellow Trim button.
• Select Menu > File > Save As and save with a new name to avoid over-write.
• Quicktime only allows duration trim… you can’t crop size with it. Fear not… remember some cropping tricks from your software tutorials (masking or resizing out of frame, among other tools depending on your app). 

AUDIO

• Right-Click > Open With > Quicktime Player.app over the video thumbnail or name to ensure it opens in Quicktime.
• The same process as video, except instead of video thumbnails in the timeline, you will see a waveform—a graphic expression of the sound data. 

Alteration (Synthesis)

Brainstorm #2: storyboarding

We will use a second brainstorming tool to help us visualize the alteration of our readymade, uploaded raw material into a one-minute presentation. This tool, known as the storyboard, is used by time-and-motion artists the way a blueprint is used by an architect to design a house. Use a storyboard sketch to brainstorm ideas for individual slides, elements within slides, and transition effects (movement, fade-ins, scaling) that enhance the narrative.

• Use Google Jamboard and see how you can set the background with an image of a blank storyboard template to sketch, collage, or make notes on.
• With the storyboard, plan how how you will use elements like images, sound, video, transitions, actions, builds, and timing within a duration longer than a minute but shorter than two.

Creating your finished work

Choose a slideware to work with, based on the tutorial you chose, and create a Keynote, Google Slides, or Adobe Express file.

• Set up your file slide size 1980 X 1020, a 16:9 ratio, or a similar option in your software that gives you the widescreen format.
• Use a simple theme (let your WORK create the visual interest, not the theme).
• In your software, compile your work using the storyboard as a guide. Be fluid, though: allow a feedback loop between this step and the storyboard. Work you do at this stage might inspire you to change what you had in mind in the storyboard. Avoid a linear process or linear thinking.
• Limit the duration of your finished art work to ONE MINUTE in length (give or take a second or two).
• Publish your work so it is publicly accessible.
  • If it’s a Keynote based project, export to a high definition video and host at YouTube or Vimeo.
  • If Google Slides, set share parameters to “anyone with the link can view.”
  • If Express, use Adobe as the host.
• Create an embed to display the work in your journal or website. If you need a refresher on embedding techniques, visit our Embeds page.

Hall of Fame

Samples of this project from past studios: