About the Artwork Life is short. The life span of many bacteria can be measured in minutes. By contrast, the oldest living organism on Earth, the Methuselah tree, can live for thousands of years. However, even this period is a blip in time when compared to how long the pattern of life, itself, can last. You see, from a biological perspective, organisms exist only long enough to pass their patterns or "blueprints" along, and no longer. A fruit fly may live only a few days, but the blueprint for a fruit fly can last for millions of years. To understand this distinction, it is important to understand that all living things are simply temporary vessels with the biological mission to pass the blueprints of their pattern forward through time, from one generation to the next. The game is to stall the inevitability of entropy. For all complex life on Earth, this is accomplished by encoding everything that makes an organism an organism into an spiraling ladder of nucleotides called DNA, and then passing it on to progeny. Just four chemicals connected in varied combinations along a helical structure form the basis for all life on Earth. DNA celebrates the power of simple compositions to achieve the complex. It celebrates the geometry of life. It is also a lesson in perspective: Humans are a self-important species. A reminder that our biological mission is no different than that of the fruit fly helps us to understand what we are, and liberates us as to what we can become.