un|fold is a sound and light sculpture, which visually reveals the deep software supply chain behind the simple text editing action “search and replace”.

The artists were inspired by the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to E. Charpentier and J. Doudna for “the development of a method for genome editing”.

One way of explaining genome editing is to liken it to “search and replace” in a text document, since the key to genome editing technology is the ability to identify and replace a part of the DNA. The chemical processes that enable the search and replace action on genomes are extremely sophisticated, and likening it to text editing is a good analogy to help us understand advanced chemistry. However, the simplest piece of software also hides complex processes. un|fold turns the 200k+ operations triggered by using “search and replace” into a large-scale sound and light sculpture that captures the richness of the simple software action.