Laboratory // : {

// Laboratory {  an imagined, rendered experiment where strangely coloured amphibian and reptilian creatures are hung, contained and presented on open frames. I raise questions of how to sustain life and reactivate it in a future world whilst presenting notions of extraction, mutilation and syphoning of biological information reflecting current scientific research practises. The clinical setting explores the idea of a search for an active technology which possesses its own life force and the underlying inadequacy of a scientific perspective to achieve such animation: the synthetic skins remain dormant retaining an artificial toylike quality.

 

I see a sack of skin as a remnant of a collection of consciousness - an exterior, shedding, a rebirth, a body without organs, a form of unformed and formed body. The inflation and deflation of these forms evokes a sense of life that once was, hinting at a possible reanimation.  The works are activated by mechanised electronics, which have been programmed to create an almost hypnotic motion: a subtle flickering, slow oscillation or revolution - we become mesmerized by a coded logic.

 

The instruments and tools represent a futile measuring or monitoring. The cold-blooded creatures speak of deep time, hibernation and adaptation - reflecting the beginning of life, when animals emerged from the ocean.

Within the project there is an intentional sense of naivety, nodding to the simplicity of a child’s science project. Oil and water, create two tone coloured liquid, a circuit probe lights up a small bulb and the screen flashes red, green, yellow and blue screen of a DNA coding sequence.