Stranger Visions

Artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg wins my award of the year for simultaneously being a classy, poised, creative genius and a weird, invasive, street creeper.  You see, D-H has found a way to create realistic 3D renderings of people all around the state of New York by simply gathering cigarette butts and chewed gum off the streets and sidewalks.

How, you might ask?  Or better yet, WHY?  Well, let's go back to the beginning.

D-H's creepy foray into scavenging for discarded items began in a public bathroom in Penn Station where she collected hairs from the sink of a bathroom. [Gagging already.] Her collection expanded shortly thereafter to fingernails, cigg butts, and best of all, already chewed and spit out bubble gum.  D-H is a PhD student studying electronic arts at Rensselear Polytechnic Institute.  She is able to extract DNA from the items she collects and sequences their genomic regions into a computer program, creating a model of the person who the discarded item once belonged to.  But D-H takes it one step further.  Instead of just being creepy on her computer in her own time, she creates actual sculptures of these people's faces using a 3D printer.

And thus was born "Stranger Visions."  Each creepy floating head is hung on a gallery wall, often accompanied with a wooden box holding the original sample that was collected and a photograph of the street or alley in which it was discovered.  If you are truly interested in the specific scientific process that D-H uses to analyze the DNA, I will link below an article from SmithsonianMag.com which has a few paragraphs detailing it.  If you're like me, however, you want to see the creepy pictures.  So, let's get to it.

 

 

D-H has even created a DNA derived self-portrait.  Judge for yourself its accuracy.  I think it's not too shabby.  D-H is quoted as saying, "It came from this place of noticing that we are leaving genetic material everywhere.  That, combined with the increasing accessibility to molecular biology and these techniques means that this kind of science fiction future is here now.  It is available to us today.  The question really is what are we going to do with that?"

The overarching problem I have with this is, um, this whole concept of, you know, CONSENT.  I mean, really, I am guilty of launching a piece of chewed gum in the air to see how far it can go.  I'm damn sure every smoker doesn't religiously deposit his/her butt into the designated ashtray.  And if every time your fingernail breaks off, you run to the nearest trashcan to properly dispose of it rather than letting it fall to the earth, I am going to sit here and silently judge you.  That being said, the gift D-H leaves with us all is now we have to be super paranoid that someone out there is collecting these items and, for all we know, a 3D model of our head could be plastered on the wall of an art gallery somewhere.  WTF.  Could you imagine if you happened to be in New York and wanted to check out some cool new art shows and, BOOM, there's your face looking back at you, soulless, unblinking, staring.  I mean, really, I'm sure there would be a way for her to identify these people based on their DNA to go ask their permission and this could even have a great forensic link for solving criminal cases if she were to hone her craft, but D-H isn't in this for the science.  She's in it for the art which makes her both cool as hell but so...so...sketchy. (Disregard the terrible art pun.)

-Amanda

Reference Article #1

Aleshenka

Meet Aleshenka.

Discovered in the village of Kaolinovy, Russia in 1996 by a mentally ill elderly woman, Tamara Vasilievna Prosvirina, Aleshenka, also known as the Kyshtym Dwarf, is an anthropomorphic artifact alleged to be a small human fetus and/or, you know, an alien.  Two Japanese companies, Asahi TV and MTV Japan actually made documentaries about Aleshenka as its discovery and origins were so fascinating and slightly disturbing.  As if its discovery were not unusual enough, the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of its body and the death of Tamara add to the creepiness factor.

An online Russian newspaper gives a recounting of Aleshenka's discovery, which in my personal opinion reads like fan fiction, but how are we to know if it is actually true?  You see, Tamara suffered from "psychiatric disease" and often spent time gathering flowers from graves at local cemeteries and decorating the rooms of her house with these flowers.  One particular night, Tamara heard a strange voice inside her head that requested she visit the cemetery.  It was there that Tamara found Aleshenka's tiny body, unable to speak, but whistling quietly to attract Tamara's attention.  Tamara scooped Aleshenka up and took it home.

 

Aleshenka's appearance was unique and odd: gray-skinned, hairless, small holes for ears, no eyelids, long fingers with small sharp claws, lack of genitals, and no navel.  Tamara took care of Aleshenka for weeks, acting as though it were her own child.  Both Tamara's daughter-in-law and mother allegedly saw Aleshenka but did not report it to the police as they were happy Tamara had a pet/child to take care of and to occupy her time.  However, it was a neighbor who reported Tamara to psychiatrists and thus Tamara was admitted to a psychiatric hospital.  As there was no one in the house to take care of Aleshenka, it died of starvation and dehydration.  Tamara had a friend, Vladimir Nurdinov, who remembered Aleshenka and went to check on it.  Unfortunately, by this time it was too late and Aleshenka's little corpse was passed on to the local police. 

In 1999, Tamara was unfortunately killed an in automobile accident upon trying to escape the hospital.  Tamara was naked and walking along the highway, wearing only green socks.  Eye-witnesses say it looked as though Tamara was reacting to someone calling to her.  Before police were able to intervene, Tamara was hit by two vehicles, thrown over 40 feet in the air, and fell back onto the road, where she died.

Soon after Tamara's death, the remains of Aleshenka disappeared.  There are a plethora of theories of what might've happened.  Aleshenka's body was recovered by a UFO inhabited by members of Aleshenka's species.  Aleshenka's body was bought by a wealthy collector of oddities.  Aleshenka's body was stolen or simply disappeared into thin air.  It was also reported that the investigator assigned to the case handed over Aleshenka's body to a pair of "ufologists" to examine the body.  To this day, no one knows what happened to Aleshenka. 

On April 15th, 2004, genetic experts at the Moscow Vavilov Institute of General Genetics made an official statement that Aleshenka was a premature female human infant with severe deformities.  The Kyshthm Disaster of 1957 greatly polluted the area with radiation, thusly resulting in the potential deformities present in the human fetus.  Interestingly enough, Vadim Chernobrov, a coordinator with the public research center, Kosmopoisk, is quoted as saying, "A gene discovered in the DNA samples doesn't correspond with any genes pertaining to humans or anthropoid apes.  No gene samples available at the laboratory match the gene."

Let me go ahead and add to the creepiness of this case: Mark Milkhiker was an academic who looked into the case of the Kyshytm phenomenon on location and carefully examined the area in which Aleshenka was found.  Soon after, Milkhiker fell ill and died of a sudden heart attack.  Also, Chernobrov, as mentioned above, was diagnosed with a mysterious disease that paralyzed him from the waist down, a disease which doctors were unable to explain.  Coincidence?  Bad luck?  Curse?  Who knows?

SO, all this being said, what are our thoughts on Aleshenka?  Fetus/alien?  Real/fiction?  Are the details surrounding Aleshenka's existence so cloudy and unbelievable that this could all be one big urban legend?  Is it better to be a skeptic and think this is all hogwash or be optimistically curious and perhaps believe Aleshenka's story to be true?

I had originally intended to add Pedro the Mummy and the Atacama skeleton to this post via my sistar Joanna sending me links about them, BUT I realize this post alone is becoming tl;dr (too long, didn't read.)  Therefore, look for Tiny Alien Mummies PART TWO coming up in the next few weeks!

-Amanda

Reference Article #1