Figure: Software and system block diagram for the installation.

Figure: Ecce Homology installation system diagram.

Figure: Installation floorplan of Ecce Homology as installed at ACM SIGGRAPH 2005 Art Gallery/Emerging Technologies exhibition.

Figure: Phases of interaction in Ecce Homology. Left: Participant notices the "breathing" state of the installation and pauses long enough that the genomic calligraphy unfolds and expands from approximately three feet wide to forty feet wide, tweleve foot tall projection. Middle: expansion of the genomic calligraphy proceeds through a "word" state to a coherent genomic pictogrph state. This is a visual metaphor for the rice genome being a target dataset that is comprised of dna "words" that are aligned and scored during BLAST analysis. Right: the expanded mode of the installation is shown with a participant inscribing gesture traces into the space, the gap, between the human and rice genomes. This gap is also a metaphor for the BLAST algorithms scoring methodology that scores sequences even with gaps with in alignments.

Figure: Interaction in Ecce Homology is based on an aesthetic of slowness. In order to interact with the installation, participants initially must pause and stand still long enough in front of the projection for it to unfold and expand in order to be available for interaction. Once in an expanded state, participants can create gesture traces into the space in between genomes, within the gap space. The slower their movements, the more consistent and longer lasting their gesture traces. The faster their movements the less consistent the quality of the gesture trace and the shorter the duration of its visibility.