Biopresence, by London-based Shiho Fukuhara and Georg Tremmel, has just won the first prize of the Transposition category at the Viper festival in Basel (Switzerland).

By using a specially developed coding method, the artists encode human DNA underneath the DNA of a plant cell, without affecting the resulting tree in any way. So, the person’s DNA will live on as an integral part of the tree. These new kind of trees can be seen as “Memorials for Life” or as “Transgenic Tombstones” and could offer an alternative to traditional graves and headstones.

They choose to use an apple tree, because of the biblical image of the apple as the forbidden fruit.

When I die, my DNA will still live in a tree. Does this mean, that I am still alive? The project questions the borders of the self, the meaning of death, and the possibility of eternal life.

Previously in bTang blog.