Heather Dewey-Hagborg

T3511 is a post-genomic love story and experimental documentary. It tells the (mostly) true story of a biohacker who becomes increasingly obsessed with an anonymous donor whose saliva she purchases online. The video and performative installation draws the viewer into an emerging world of ubiquitous genomic sequencing, biobanking, and commodification of human biological materials.

T3511 builds on this history and research by showing the story of my attempt to re identify a single anonymous donor (T2305) whose saliva I purchased on the internet. By analyzing their DNA, profiling them, culturing their cells, and writing to them, I develop a form of intimacy. I send the saliva for analysis at 23andme, one of the many services offering direct-to-consumer genetic testing, ancestry analysis, and genealogy. The story takes a twist when a genetic match contacts me through a social network connected to the donor’s profile. Following our email correspondence I begin to investigate the writer’s identity, which seems increasingly likely to match the anonymous saliva. It then becomes clear that I need to travel to the lab where the saliva was originally extracted to experience this process for myself. I become donor T3511.

Heather Dewey-Hagborg is a transdisciplinary artist and educator who is interested in art as research and critical practice. Her controversial biopolitical art practice includes the project Stranger Visions in which she created portrait sculptures from analyses of genetic material (hair, cigarette butts, chewed up gum) collected in public places.
Heather has shown work internationally at events and venues including the World Economic Forum, Centre Pompidou, Shenzhen Urbanism and Architecture Biennale, the New Museum, and PS1 MOMA. Her work has been widely discussed in the media, from the New York Times and the BBC to TED and Wired. She is an Assistant Professor of Art and Technology Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a 2016 Creative Capital award grantee in the area of Emerging Fields.