HIV is a devastating disease, and is one of the many large
obstacles facing modern science. It has
no direct treatment, and is posing a great challenge to the nations in Africa,
with limited supplies and access to medical treatment. Much advancement has been made to slow the
assault of HIV, but none have solved this tortuous puzzle yet.
Alexandra Pajak has taken a different approach. Rather than treat HIV, she has instead
represented this virus’s genomic sequence in an artistic way. Many artists have chosen their own paths to
doing this, but Pajak has taken each of the nucleotides as well as the amino
acids and assigned each one a pitch. She
strings together these notes, starting off of this set of information and choosing
instruments and tempo to fit with it. Care to listen? Go to http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2010/10/27/what-does-hiv-sound-like-audio/
In my opinion, this melody has great potential to be very
powerful. I was unsure, as the music
began; the notes seem disjointed and sharp.
However, as the song progresses further, there are harmonies introduced,
and different instruments adding variety, and I think that the final result
here is indeed an interesting and beautiful representation of a deadly and
destructive force in our world. The
music even seems to have a mournful, plaintive aspect to it. This seems appropriate, that this disease
could be represented thus. I believe
this to be a powerful piece.