CROSSING OVER
Genetic Manipulation and Bioengineering

Royal Institution of Great Britain
21 Albemarle Street, London, W1S 4BS
2 October - 21 November 2008
Admission free
See www.rigb.org for opening times and further details


Crossing Over is an exhibition of contemporary art at the Royal  
Institution of Great Britain that addresses the highly topical subject  
of genetic manipulation and bioengineering. Bringing together art,  
design and science, the artworks by twelve artists and designers  
investigate the metaphors, potentialities and anxieties of this much  
debated area.

The different approaches and subjects tackled by the artists reflect  
the breath and complexity of the biosciences. From an animation that  
interlaces past and present speculations of cloning, to interactive  
brain cells, topiary lambs that reference transgenic research and  
bioluminescent portraits.

Crossing Over engages with the transfer of art, design and  
biotechnologies, addressing questions on the shifting boundaries  
between biological and biotechnological, human and non-human, subject  
and object. The exhibition stands as a benchmark in the bioscience  
debate, reflecting this time of intense speculation and fear,  
parliamentary legislation and rapid advancement.

Crossing Over is about this moment in the history of bioscience, which  
will sustain progressions even during the exhibitions own duration.  
Crossing Over does not attempt to resolve the complexities that arise  
out of biotechnologies, but rather, through contemporary art and  
design, highlights some of the concerns as well as possibilities they  
engender.

The multi-disciplinary works, all developed specifically for the  
exhibition, are displayed throughout the Royal Institution’s newly  
refurbished building. Steeped in a long history of scientific  
discovery, the Royal Institution provides a congruent backdrop to the  
exhibition, with works punctuating and intercepting the building’s  
public spaces. Nestled within the library bookshelves, adorning the  
opulent grand entrance, shown in amongst the institution’s historical  
collections, and screened across the airy atrium, the situating of  
works creates a journey of discovery for the visitor.

Curators: Dr Caterina Albano (Artakt, Central Saint Martins College)  
and Rowan Drury.

Scientific advisers: Prof. Richard Ashcroft (Queen Mary College);
Dr Chris Mason (Advanced Centre for Biomedical Engineering,
UCL) and Prof. Sarah Franklin (Bios Centre, London
School of Economics).

Supported by: The Wellcome Trust, the Arts Council of England
and Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design.
The Royal Institution


List of works
Film director Phoebe von Held takes as her starting point Denis  
Diderot’s eighteenth century text, D’Alembert’s Dream. The resulting
animation interlaces later-day speculations of cloning made in the  
texts with today’s scientific insight, and uncovers the uncanny  
similarities between fears of the past and present.

Material Beliefs, a collective of designers (Elio Caccavale, Tobie  
Kerridge, James Auger, Jimmy Loizeau, Aleksandar Zivanovic, David Muth  
and Susanne Soares) 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 for a user to interact with a culture of brain cells cared  
for in a distant laboratory; a group of carnivorous robots; a system  
that uses live monitoring technology for surveying a child’s  
orientation and condition.

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 contemplates transgenic research  
and notions of manipulating 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 used by Carl Stevenson to  
explore anxieties around genetic enhancement and regenerative  
biotechnologies. His hypnotic film composes and decomposes plaster  
body parts. The camera’s lens lingers on intimate creases and lines in  
the skin before a fountain’s shower slowly dissolves them.

Intensively bred Zebra fish are the protagonists of Kathleen Rogers’s  
multi-layered digital installation. Video microscopy of the  
artificially mutated fish embryos, spliced between different screens,  
reflects upon the evolutionary interconnections that link zebra fish  
to humans.

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. Bacteria is used as the only light source to  
light sittlers in a photo booth. The resulting portraits, projected in  
the Royal Institutions famous lecture theatre, are enveloped in the  
translucent hue emitted by the bacteria suggesting the process of  
intercellular communication that is the origin of luminescence.
Royal Institution of Great Britain
21 Albemarle Street, London, W1S 4BS
2 October - 21 November 2008
Admission free
See www.rigb.org for opening times and further details


Regards
Keith Watson
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+44 (0) 7802 74 84 84