At Stochastic, award-winning artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman teamed up with NASA scientist Josiah Zayner to produce an epic transmedia artwork. The Infinity Engine encompasses an art installation, an interactive web presence, and a feature film, creating an experience that highlights the urgent and controversial implications of DNA programming.

Currently on international tour, and recently featured at ZKM, the art installation presents visitors with a replica lab containing 3D bioprinters, microscopes, recorded interviews with genetics experts, and samples of genetically modified organisms. Visitors to the installation are invited to enter “The Scanning Booth,” where a talking computer program attempts to reverse-engineer their genetics based on their physical characteristics. “The Scanning Booth” is powered by custom software written by Josiah that uses computer vision and machine learning to match human features to a genetic database. An online version that will allow web visitors to submit photos of themselves for genetic analysis is in development. “The Scanning Booth” represents the first-ever attempt to reverse-engineer genetics from images of the human face.

The feature film, The Infinity Engine, is the third in a trilogy of films begun in 1995, all written and directed by Lynn Hershman and all featuring Tilda Swinton. The trilogy includes the award-winning films Conceiving Ada and Teknolust. These films explore the implications —ethical as well as social— of the era of genetic manipulation. Lynn hopes to use data collected from “The Scanning Booth” to create a character in the third film. The Infinity Engine won the IFP Pixel Market Prize at the Power to the Pixel: Cross-Media Forum. Lisa Cortes (Precious) is producing.

Lynn Hershman Leeson’s work has been shown in over two hundred large-scale exhibitions throughout the world and is featured in the public collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, Lehmbruck Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, National Gallery of Canada, Walker Art Center, Whitworth Art Gallery (Manchester), and Berkeley Art Museum, in addition to celebrated private collections.

Among Lynn’s feature-length films are Strange Culture (2007), an examination of the state control of art, science, and public policy as seen through the bioterrorism case of Critical Art Ensemble member Steve Kurtz; Conceiving Ada (1997); and Teknolust (2002)—all featuring actress Tilda Swinton. Her films have won many awards and have been featured at the Sundance, Berlin, and Toronto International Film Festivals.

From 1993 to 2004 Lynn was Professor of Electronic Arts at UC Davis, where she became emeritus, before accepting a chair at the San Francisco Art Institute. She was recently A.D. White Professor at Cornell University, and Visiting Artist at the New School for Social Engagement. Over the years, she has received numerous awards and distinctions, including ZKM’s Siemens International Media Arts Award, Flintridge Foundation and Siggraph Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts, Prix Ars Electronica, John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Feature Film Prize. The Digital Art Museum in Berlin recognized her work with a 2010–11 d.velop Digital Art Award for lifetime achievement in the field of new media. In addition, she also is faculty in Design at the California College of the Arts. She lives and works in San Francisco.

Josiah Zayner received his Ph.D in molecular biophysics from the University of Chicago and currently works as a Research Fellow at NASA, where he engineers bacteria for in situ resource utilization and sustainability in long-term space exploration and colonization. He has a number of scientific publications and awards for his work on protein engineering and is also the recipient of art awards for creating speculative science works, including the Chromocord, the first-ever bioelectronic musical instrument. Josiah is also the creator of the ILIAD Project, a citizen science search for natural antibiotics, and the founder and CEO of the Open Discovery Institute (ODIN), DIY science’s first store. He enjoys whiskey and Red Bull, sometimes together. His work has been featured in Scientific American, Popular Science, Businessweek, and NPR.