Exhibition runs from 2 October until 21 November 2008
The Ri is delighted to be holding an exhibition of contemporary art throughout October and November. ‘Crossing over' has been organised in partnership with Artakt, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. The exhibition explores various biotechnology themes, including advanced genetic and cell research, cloning, gene manipulation, animal hybrids and life extension. The works of art, all of which express cross-overs between art, science and technology, will be displayed throughout the building.
Opening times
The exhibition is free and is open 9.00am-9.00pm Monday to Friday. All of the pieces in the exhibition are displayed in different rooms of the Ri and there are sometimes other activities happening in these rooms that means they are not open to the public. If you are interested in seeing a particular piece in the exhibition please call the Events Team on 020 7409 2992 before your visit to check that it is available.
Works
Film director Phoebe von Held takes as her starting point Denis Diderot's eighteenth century text, D'Alembert's Dream for her animation Chrysalis. The result interlaces historical speculations of cloning with later-day scientific insight.
Material Beliefs, a collective of designers who collaborate with scientists, have created a display of biotechnological products and devices to deal with potential situations made possible by progressions in bioscience: An interface to interact with a culture of brain cells cared for in a distant laboratory; a group of carnivorous robots; a biometric devise for child surveillance; a reflection on tissue manipulation.
Artists Eggebert and Gould have cultivated a pair of, at once curious and grotesque, topiary lambs. With reference the ancient Scythian myth (of a lamb growing from a plant) the work, The Vegetable Lamb, contemplates transgenic research and notions of manipulated life forms.
Alex Bunn's sculpture, Quaibrid, explores the possibilities of reshaping and manipulating body image. The bust is formed using multiple high resolution medical scan topography of different tissues of the body that are fused with architectural components to create a unique hybrid portrait.
The myth of the fountain of eternal youth is reflected upon in the film, Fountain, by Carl Stevenson to explore anxieties around genetic enhancement and regenerative biotechnologies.
Intensively bred zebra fish are the protagonists of Kathleen Rogers's multi-layered digital installation, Cocoon. Video microscopy of the artificially mutated fish embryos, spliced between different screens, reflects upon the manipulation of embryonic life.
Anne Brodie's Exploring the Invisible, uses bioluminescence, a bacteria used for medical research, including the non-invasive analyses of cancerous cells, to create a series of haunting photographic portraits.