2019. Paper clay and red thread. Variable dimensions (approx. 14″ x 30″).
my family name is coming to an end. it was a small family to begin with, and of my father’s generation, he is the only male who had children. of his three children, my sister and i both still bear the last name (or rather, we bear it again after a few permutations) and my brother changed his last name to a pre-ellis island version of the name. my son does not share my last name. my sister’s two children have a hyphenated combo of their parents’ last names. my brother has two daughters with his changed last name. the end is near and in sight.
families, dynasties, legacies – these are human constructs that help us socially orient ourselves. science takes a different, deeper, longer approach, looking at DNA and genes, which care not a fig about our names, relationships, hobbies, careers, or many interests. their singular aim is to replicate. my family name will be gone, but the line will continue in many people for many generations. the study of epigenetics is still in its infancy, though we already know that our experiences as individuals modify how our genes are expressed in future generations. the things that happen to me and the choices i make will have an impact on future generations. my responsibilities as a future ancestor are manifold.
“We are survival machines–robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.” – Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene
“Genes, not organisms, are the true units of natural selection. They began as ‘replicators’–molecules formed accidentally in the primordial soup, with the unusual property of making copies of themselves. They are past masters of the survival arts. But do not look for them floating loose in the sea; they gave up that cavalier freedom long ago. Now they swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control. They are in you and in me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines.” – James Gleick in The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood