From http://www-tech.mit.edu/V120/N26/bioartists.26f.html:

"Microvenus, [is] a project in protest of the censorship of radio messages sent into deep space. Davis’ idea is to put the human genome into a hardy strain of bacteria and send it into deep space.“The spores of B. subtilis can last indefinitely” in deep space, according to Davis. So far he has coded information of vaginal contractions, in protest of what he calls the “man and Barbie” version of humanity sent by radio messages into deep space. Davis, evidently a committed believer in extraterrestrial life adds, “And they wonder why they come and experiment on our sex organs.” [5]

From Joe Davis, Ars Electronica, 2000:

Molecular Artworks
At Ars Electronica I plan to install a novel instrument I have recently developed and several examples of my work constructed from synthetic molecules of DNA. If possible I will also exhibit the recombinant bacteria that now host my molecular artworks.

The first of these artistic molecules, Microvenus, contains a coded visual icon representing the external female genitalia and by coincidence, an ancient Germanic rune representing the female Earth . That work was carried out with molecular geneticist Dana Boyd at Jon Beckwith's laboratory at Harvard Medical School and at Hatch Echol's laboratory at University of California, Berkeley. Later, I learned to sequence or "read back" DNA molecules (including this one) with Shuguang Zhang and Curtis Lockshin at Alexander Rich's laboratory at MIT. Techniques used to encode visual messages for extraterrestrial intelligence were co-opted to encode the Microvenus graphic information and a short decoding primer into a 28-mer DNA molecule.

Microvenus icon

(PRIMARY STRAND)

(microvenus bitmap )

5'-CTTAAAGGGGCCCCCCAACGCGCGCGCT-3'
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
3'-GAATTTCCCCGGGGGGTTGCGCGCGCGA-5'
(COMPLEMENTARY STRAND)
Double-Stranded Microvenus DNA