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DNA Synthesizer

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www.futureofmaking.de

About the project

The author has already attempted to create an artistic counterpart to the reductionist, transparent, incapacitating development of the neurosciences and neuromarketing by using their tools. Subsequently artistic interpretations of the transparent and structure-determined DNA are now to be implemented analogous to the biotechnological and genetic development. Behind every digital image, text or video there are ones or zeros, which receive their form and meaning exclusively through algorithmic interpretation. In the same way, behind every living being, no matter how different they seem to be, according to reductionist genetics there are only base sequences of A, G, C and T.

There are unlimited possibilities to interpret things like DNA artistically. In nature, DNA is read sequentially, or rather interpreted sequentially. Therefore DNA is also sequentially structured so that the sequentiell interpretation makes sense or vice versa. To interpret this sequential structure, it also makes sense to use a sequential interpretation. Probably the most feasible way of an artistic algorithmic sequential interpretation is the generation of sound, which is why the attempt is made to create music from DNA. In nature, proteins also maintain their function through their specific sequential sequence of amino acids. The proteins are assembled on the basis of the sequential sequence of codons in the DNA. Instead of always reading dry words and structural formulas when dealing with biology, it would be interesting to listen to soulful sounds that have their origin in the blueprint of life. Not everybody understands structural formulas, but everybody understands music, even if this understanding is not rational, but rather sensual. Furthermore, why not convert the language of DNA into human language, since we already use letters to represent bases and amino acids? The attempt of a speech synthesis on the basis of DNA was also dared here in an experimental version.

TLDR

With this tool you can transform any DNA and RNA into sounds and music. You can choose from a variety of instruments and synthesizers that can be combined to create even orchestral sounds. The settings let you choose the beat, key signature, instruments, start index, start delay, note spectrum and algorithm to be used. With a little sensitivity, you can even get musical experiences out of pathogens.

The long explanation about this project

        What is man? A question which, even before Immanuel Kant posed it in
        his lecture on logic [1, p. 25], had countless answers ranging from
        zõon lógon échon and zõon politikón (the rational and political
        animal, Aristoteles) to the image of God. Today, 239 years later –
        and in times of physics, genetics, psychology, biotechnology,
        artificial intelligence and above all the advancing material
        reductionism – the question is more relevant than ever.
       
        In 1913, environmentalism was taken to extremes with the behaviorism
        of J.B. Watson, who argued that the environment is the only thing
        that makes up a person, including his emotional life. There is no
        such thing as self-observation, he reacts according to a
        stimulus-response scheme [5], the human being is entirely a product
        of his environment.
        
        Ten years later, after having previously used psychoanalysis,
        including self-observation, to define the subconscious as the
        driving force behind our actions, Sigmund Freud reduced the human
        being to an apparatus in The Ego and the Id [6].
        
        Years earlier, with the Nobel Prize 1906 awarded to Camillo Golgi
        and Santiago Ramon y Cajal for their research into the structure of
        the nervous system [7], a corner stone was laid for today's
        neurosciences and the associated reduction of the human being to a
        mere quantitatively measurable neuron activity. While behaviorism
        already led to the targeted manipulation of humans by means of
        successes ranging from conditioning to nudging, neuroscience and
        computer science promise far more profound possibilities to reduce
        humans to a Pavlovian dog [8, 9].
        
        The shift from classical marketing to neuromarketing [10, 11] and
        Silicon Valley's increasing investment in brain research [12] show
        that reductionist neuroscience will continue to expand its lead over
        classical psychology in the reduction of the human being. The human
        being here is predominantly a determined and transparent product of
        his neurons.
        
        Hundreds of years after Aristotle, man was raised to the image of
        God, but in 1859 with the creation of the species Darwin brought him
        back into the animal kingdom [13]. If the above developments mark a
        reduction of man according to the top-down principle, Gregor Mendel
        seven years later, with his Mendel's rules [14], set the beginning
        of genetics and the accompanying reduction according to the
        bottom-up principle. One year later, Francis Galton founded
        behavioural genetics [15], the reduction of behaviour to genetic
        predispositions. Building on both, together with the discovery of
        chromosomes and their underlying genes, unscientific methods and
        political objectives launched eugenics, race theory, and the age of
        Social Darwinism under the guise of scholarliness [16]. Whereas in
        behaviorism and classical psychology one could still partially
        protect oneself from reduction by consciously behaving differently
        or by lying, in Social Darwinism one was and is a determined,
        transparent product of one's origin and thus of one's genes. The
        idea that efficiency, intelligence and morality were determined by
        heredity lost its charm after its sad National Socialist peak and
        has since been hushed up, especially in the German-speaking world.
        With the discovery of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), its double helix
        [17] and genetic engineering [18], founded in 1971, man was elevated
        above evolution and given the tools to change life to suit his
        taste. With the Human Genome Project in 2001, the human genome was
        finally completely decoded to its bases [19].At the same time, man
        was reduced to a genetically determined, transparent product of his
        base sequence.
        
        In 2018, these tools were applied to the decoded human genome,
        produced genetically modified offspring [20] and thus initiated a
        development that may not be stopped. External determination by
        origin, gives way to prenatal external determination by genetic
        engineers. Eugenics and Social Darwinism could experience a
        dangerous and profound renaissance through these biotechnological
        developments.
        
        Although the foundations for the patenting of genetically modified
        organisms have already been laid, such as by the EU Directive
        98/44/EC, that directive still prevents dystopian visions of the
        future from becoming reality by excluding gene patents that
        intervene in the human germ line [21].
        
        In the case that individual genes for human modification can ever be
        patented – keyword designer babies [22], the aforementioned
        conditioning and neuromarketing – we as mankind are about to answer
        the fourth Kantian question asked at the beginning – what is the
        human being – as neither a product of its base sequence nor as a
        product of its neurons, but completely reduced to solely product.
        
        Both supporting and parallel to these developments, the development
        of artificial intelligence [23], the foundations of which were laid
        in the last century, is currently proceeding at a rapid pace.
        Nowadays, AI reduces humans completely to the data traces they
        voluntarily leave behind in their daily lives, which are shaped by
        Instagram, Google, Amazon and the others. At the same time, wherever
        AI enters the scene, from diagnostics [24], to production [25], to
        human leisure activities [26], it knocks human intelligence from its
        throne. A predicted mass unemployment [27], in which all sectors,
        including the creative industries, will be affected [28], is pushing
        people into insignificance. In view of a future technical
        singularity, the fourth Kantian question can possibly in the future
        be answered with „irrelevant“.
        
        The author has already attempted to create an artistic counterpart
        to the reductionist, transparent, incapacitating development of the
        neurosciences and neuromarketing by using their tools. Subsequently
        artistic interpretations of the transparent and structure-determined
        DNA are now to be implemented analogous to the biotechnological and
        genetic development. Behind every digital image, text or video there
        are ones or zeros, which receive their form and meaning exclusively
        through algorithmic interpretation. In the same way, behind every
        living being, no matter how different they seem to be, according to
        reductionist genetics there are only base sequences of A, G, C and T.
        
        There are unlimited possibilities to interpret things like DNA
        artistically. In nature, DNA is read sequentially, or rather
        interpreted sequentially. Therefore DNA is also sequentially
        structured so that the sequentiell interpretation makes sense or
        vice versa. To interpret this sequential structure, it also makes
        sense to use a sequential interpretation. Probably the most feasible
        way of an artistic algorithmic sequential interpretation is the
        generation of sound, which is why the attempt is made to create
        music from DNA. In nature, proteins also maintain their function
        through their specific sequential sequence of amino acids. The
        proteins are assembled on the basis of the sequential sequence of
        codons in the DNA. Instead of always reading dry words and
        structural formulas when dealing with biology, it would be
        interesting to listen to soulful sounds that have their origin in
        the blueprint of life. Not everybody understands structural
        formulas, but everybody understands music, even if this
        understanding is not rational, but rather sensual. Furthermore, why
        not convert the language of DNA into human language, since we
        already use letters to represent bases and amino acids? The attempt
        of a speech synthesis on the basis of DNA was also dared here in an
        experimental version. In the future other sequential interpretation
        forms like texts, scripts including movies might be imaginable.
        
        Through artistic interpretations of (one's own) DNA, man freely
        defines its meaning. Contrary to fixed value judgements such as good
        or bad, high or low quality, proficient or lazy, he distances
        himself, places himself as an interpreter and no longer as a
        determined, transparent product and thus as an individual above this
        sequence of elements. He becomes more than the sum of his bases.
        
        literature

        [1] Immanuel Kant, Immanuel Kants Logik : ein Handbuch zu Vorlesungen, 1. Aufl. Königsberg: Jäsche, Gottlob Benjamin, 1800.
        [2] John Locke, Versuch über den menschlichen Verstand. In vier Büchern. , 1690.
        [3] Immanuel Kant, Über Pädagogik, 1. Aufl. Königsberg: Friedrich Nicolovius, 1803.
        [4] W. Stangl, Milieutheorie. Lexikon für Psychologie und Pädagogik. [Online]. Available under: https://lexikon.stangl.eu/18837/milieutheorie/. Access am: 23. April 2020.
        [5] J. B. Watson, „Psychology as the behaviorist views it“, Psychological Review, Jg. 20, Nr. 2, S. 158–177, 1913, doi: 10.1037/h0074428.
        [6] S. Freud, Das Ich und das Es, 1. Aufl. Leipzig, Wien, Zürich: Internat. psychoanalyt. Verlag, 1923.
        [7] The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1906. [Online]. Available under: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1906/summary/. Access am: 23. April 2020.
        [8] Big Data zur Verhaltenssteuerung?: Big Nudging - zur Problemlösung wenig geeignet. [Online]. Available under: https://www.spektrum.de/kolumne/big-nudging-zur-problemloesung-wenig- geeignet/1375930. Access am: 23. April 2020.
        [9] L. Aguado, „Neuroscience of Pavlovian conditioning: a brief review“ (eng), The Spanish journal of psychology, Jg. 6, Nr. 2, S. 155–167, 2003, doi: 10.1017/s1138741600005308.
        [10] L. M. Soria Morillo, J. A. A. García, L. Gonzalez-Abril und J. A. O. Ramirez, „Advertising Liking Recognition Technique Applied to Neuromarketing by Using Low-Cost EEG Headset“ in Lecture notes in computer science Bioinformatics , Bd. 9044, Bioinformatics and biomedical engineering: Third
        international conference, IWBBIO 2015, Granada, Spain, April 15-17, 2015; proceedings , F. M. Ortuño
        Guzmán und I. Rojas, Hg., Cham: Springer, 2015, S. 701–709, doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-16480-9_68.
        [11] Neuromarketing: What You Need to Know. [Online]. Available under: https://hbr.org/2019/01/neuromarketing-what-you-need-to-know. Access am: 23. April 2020.
        [12] Das Ende der Gedankenfreiheit: Tech-Firmen wollen mit unserem Gehirn Geld verdienen. [Online]. Available under: https://www.gq-magazin.de/auto-technik/article/das-ende-der-gedankenfreiheit- tech-firmen-wollen-mit-unserem-gehirn-geld-verdienen. Access am: 23. April 2020.
        [13] C. Darwin, On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or, The preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. London: Murray, 1859.
        [14] G. Mendel, Versuche über Pflanzen-Hybriden, 1866. [Online]. Available under: http://phaidra.univie.ac.at/o:171522
        [15] R. L. Cautin und S. O. Lilienfeld, Hg., The encyclopedia of clinical psychology. Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2015.
        [16] M. Lenzen, Was ist Sozialdarwinismus? | bpb. [Online]. Available under: https://www.bpb.de/politik/extremismus/rechtsextremismus/214188/was-ist-sozialdarwinismus. Access am: 23. April 2020.
        [17] Bayerischer Rundfunk, Entdeckung der Doppelhelix: James Watson entschlüsselte die DNS-Struktur. [Online]. Available under: https://www.br.de/themen/wissen/james-watson-dna-dns-francis-crick- genforschung-gene-strickleiter-100.html. Access am: 23. April 2020.
        [18] Professor Ray Wu | Biographical summary. [Online]. Available under: https://www.whatisbiotechnology.org/index.php/people/summary/Wu. Access am: 23. April 2020.
        [19] National Human Genome Research Institute, What is the Human Genome Project? [Online]. Available under: https://www.genome.gov/human-genome-project/What. Access am: 23. April 2020.
        [20] D. Cyranoski und H. Ledford, „Genome-edited baby claim provokes international outcry“ (eng), Nature, Jg. 563, Nr. 7733, S. 607–608, 2018, doi: 10.1038/d41586-018-07545-0.
        [21] European Parliament & Council, Directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions. [Online]. Available under: https://eur- lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:1998:213:0013:0021:EN:PDF. Access am: 23. April 2020.
        [22] A. C. J. W. Janssens, „Designing babies through gene editing: science or science fiction?“ (eng), Genetics in medicine : official journal of the American College of Medical Genetics , Jg. 18, Nr. 12, S. 1186–1187, 2016, doi: 10.1038/gim.2016.28.
        [23] N. Statt, The AI boom is happening all over the world, and it’s accelerating quickly. [Online]. Available under: https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/12/18136929/artificial-intelligence-ai-index- report-2018-machine-learning-global-progress-research. Access am: 28. April 2020.
        [24] S. M. McKinney et al., „International evaluation of an AI system for breast cancer screening“ (eng), Nature, Jg. 577, Nr. 7788, S. 89–94, 2020, doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1799-6.
        [25] C. Vavra, Robotics and AI improve factories of the future. [Online]. Available under: https://www.controleng.com/articles/robotics-and-ai-improve-factories-of-the-future/. Access am: 28. April 2020.
        [26] D. Silver et al., „Mastering the game of Go with deep neural networks and tree search“, Nature, Jg. 529, Nr. 7587, S. 484–489, 2016, doi: 10.1038/nature16961.
        [27] C. B. Frey und M. A. Osborne, „The future of employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation?“, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Jg. 114, S. 254–280, 2017, doi: 10.1016/j.techfore.2016.08.019.
        [28] K. German, M. Limm, M. Wölfel und S. Helmerdig, „Towards Artificial Intelligence Serving as an Inspiring Co-Creation Partner“, EAI Endorsed Transactions on Creative Technologies, Jg. 6, S. 162609, 2019, doi: 10.4108/eai.26-4-2019.162609.

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