We recently sat down with Christian Bök, a Canadian poet and experimental writer who has paired up with Lydia Contreras, an expert in synthetic biology. Collectively, they are imprinting verse into the famously hardy microbe called Deinococcus radiodurans. This innovative project aims to preserve poetic messages for millennia, ensuring they survive even catastrophic events on Earth. The partnership created two original poems, Orpheus and Eurydice. First, they employ a special mutually bijective cipher, such that each letter of the English alphabet is replaced by a unique other letter.
Bök’s effort started with a 2015 proof of concept. From 2013 to early 2017, he labored over the two works, which are based on intricate letter-to-letter ciphers. In the first two lines of each of these works, you can switch the letters A and T, N and H, and Y and E. This allows for a strict but elegant dance between the text. This highly developed coding scheme is what will be used as the basis for encoding “Orpheus” into the bacterium’s genome.
The Art of Encoding
The method Bök uses utilizes DNA sequences to encode letters for each character of the English alphabet. After chemically activating Deinococcus radiodurans bacterium, it is able to successfully and accurately “read” the poem, taking the form of a set of genetic instructions. This collaborative process allows the bacteria to compose an answering poem titled “Eurydice.”
Bök created rigid cipher parameters as rules of composition for each of these poems. Every letter substitution needs to be the same for each word.
“Any style/of life is prim”
The project’s lofty aim though is to make sure that these digitally encoded messages last until the end of time. Bök stated,
“The faery/ is rosy of glow”
One of the most important collaborators on this project was Lydia Contreras, whose expertise in Deinococcus radiodurans proved invaluable. This bacterium holds the record for the most radiation-resistant known organism. As a result, it is the perfect canvas for embedding knowledge. This multidisciplinary collaboration displays the beauty that happens when the fields of synthetic biology, art, and literature combine in innovative ways.
Weaving awareness of long-term storage of information into everything that she does has been key to Contreras’ work. She remarked,
“We’ve made very few things that could outlast the sun. This artifact is a gesture, a way of showing that we could conceivably build technology that might preserve messages over the lifespan of Earth, hardening our cultural heritage against planetary disasters that could wipe out our civilization.”
The Role of Synthetic Biology
By encoding poetry into living organisms, Bök and Contreras are not only preserving art but challenging conventional notions of literature and permanence.
Bök’s project represents the centerpiece of his new book titled “The Xenotext: Book 2,” which is part of a series he has been developing for over 25 years. This ongoing exploration into the intersection of biology and poetry highlights a significant shift in how culture can be preserved in an age marked by rapid technological advancement.
“What this ultimately comes down to is how do we store information that will forever survive. How do we keep it and guard it? Living organisms are the ultimate storers of information, and it’s something these technologies are showing with ideas of synthetic biotechnology being incorporated into other futuristic applications like self-healing buildings.”
The partnership between Bök and Contreras is an inspiring model for the future of art and science co-creation. They are bringing poetic genius together with genius at genetic engineering. This audacious pairing signals more ambitious efforts ahead that could change the way humanity engages with literature and preserve it for generations to come.
The Future of Cultural Preservation
Bök’s project represents the centerpiece of his new book titled “The Xenotext: Book 2,” which is part of a series he has been developing for over 25 years. This ongoing exploration into the intersection of biology and poetry highlights a significant shift in how culture can be preserved in an age marked by rapid technological advancement.
The collaboration between Bök and Contreras exemplifies a pioneering approach to both art and science. By merging poetry with genetic engineering, they are paving the way for future endeavors that may redefine how humanity perceives literature and its longevity.
