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Current project: Inside Time

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Human building blocks form the shape of a telomere, the end cap of a chromosome

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Inside Time
Inside Time
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About/Contact the Artist
"Inside Time" was inspired by a seminar on a possible mechanism for the reversal of aging in 1991*. The presentation was about Telomeres, the end caps of chromosomes. It described how these end caps get shorter as a person gets older. The possibility that an enzyme could restore the end caps and thereby lengthen a person's lifespan appeared to open a gateway to a "Fountain of Youth". This discovery was taken so seriously that it spawned new biotech companies.

Although this did not turn out to be a complete means for the reversal of aging, it is potentially one piece in the key to understanding aging. The paper inspired Newdoll's works about the scientific search for a Fountain of Youth. Following the trail of this research led to other works about Apoptosis (cell death), the Circadian Clock, and the Biological Clock, which together form the four-part series, Inside Time.

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The Four Acts of Inside Time

This project will include a series of paintings and a performance in four acts. There will be a 30 minute piece, where a few dancers will act out the content of the presentation. A pre-recorded video tape of the imagery related to the piece will be back-projected onto a large screen. The dancers will sometimes function as shadow puppets and sometimes appear in front of the screen. Music will be composed for the piece.

Conceptual sketch for the Acts:

    Act One: Circadian Rhythm

    Act Two: Biological Clock

    Act Three: Apoptosis - the story of cell death

    Act Four: The Fountain of Youth

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Emerging Cast of Characters and Work Sketches:
Bax Twins, agents of cell death.
Apoptosis Queen
Woman Contemplating her Biological Clock
Woman reclining near the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus, center of Circadian Rhythm
CLOCK Weaver Girl and BMAL-1 Ox Boy Bound to DNA and to each other as part of their Circadian Cycle of Time
* The discovery of telomerase was first published by CW Greider and EH Blackburn, "Telomere terminal transferase of Tetrahymena is a ribonucleoprotein enzyme with two kinds of primer specificity", Cell 51:887-898, 1987.

For a recent review of telomeres, see ML Pardue and PG DeBaryshe, "Telomeres and telomerase: more than the end of the line", Chromosoma. 1999 May;108(2):73-82
copyright (c) 2000, Julie Newdoll, all rights reserved.
Copyright © 2000, Julie Newdoll. All rights reserved.