Enigma of the environment: expression intercession

Expression Intercession, a multi-media art installation, is a collaboration between artists David Lyons and Raz Ullah. The work’s interactive environment consists of a wall-sized projected motion graphic and a dynamic soundscape. Twenty differently coloured squares representing the twenty amino acids of human gene expression cycle through the image.

The evolving soundscape is made up of overlapping chords playing in the key of ‘C’, as cytosine plays a central role in epigenetics. The changing sections of the soundscape from quarter notes, eighth notes and sixteenth notes represents the division of cells and the activation / deactivation of different genes.

The expressions of the motion graphic and the soundscape are influenced by changes in the installation’s immediate environment. Those changes are triggered by audience interactions with sensors and projectors within the installation setting. The alterations to the art resulting from environmental influences are meant as an artistic analogy for the gene expression variations of epigenetics.