Title: The Signal and the Noise | Credit: Charlie Tweed / Animate Projects

The Signal and the Noise

Charlie Tweed and Dr Darren Logan | Video | Silent Signal

Voiced by an anonymous group of hybrid machines, from some point in the near future, The Signal and the Noise exposes the parallels of computer coding and genetic coding in humans and animals. The work’s narrators look at these creatures as inefficient machines and consider ways of editing and improving their code.

The film draws upon the latest advances in DNA sequencing technology, as well as new ways of controlling behaviour, such as Optogenetics, to propose a future vision of hybrid computing devices that are used to monitor and repair living things, resulting in better performing humans and animals.

Whilst the work appears to be a piece of science fiction, all of the technologies and ideas discussed are based on actual advances and research, and visions of how things might materialise in the future.