10-12th August 2004

Morning Spent with Gavin Wakely Microscopist 10th August

Gavin introduced me to the Scanning Electron Microscope and the Light Transmission Microscope. In his field there is a question of what is 'real'. For example, an impression is made of a sample to be put through a SEM. It is this that is seen rather than the 'real' object. The transmission microscope involves cutting an incredibly thin section of the sample and in this process much is done to both create contrast and preserve the sample, thus the sample becomes considerably altered (known as the fixation problem).

Conversation With Christine Hauskeller 12th August

Christine, who has written about stem cell research, described her involvement in this subject. In comparison with other work she has carried out into the genome, she is aware that stem cells have some power to draw her in on an emotional level. In part Christine's response seems to be linked to visual imagery. For example, some while ago Christine visited a Sheffield Laboratory working with stem cells. Here, she was shown images that moved in accord with the heart beat rhythm which she found extraordinarily moving.

There is difference between laboratories dealing with micro-organisms in a traditional manner i.e. involving human interactions using petrie dishes (round forms / liquids, growth and decay) - all in all, more alchemical procedures, and those laboratories to produce genetic codes. The latter are more technological: operations are robotised and there is a strong mathematical element.

Issues around stem cell research are linked to emotive questions concerning origins/nurture/birth. The heart beat (sound and rhythm) are formative in the development of the identity of the foetus. It may (rightly?) be assumed that it is less easy to be 'objective' about these issues especially from the subject position of a woman.

As an artist, I begin to wonder whether it is possible to use moving images of stem cells - if these open up a subjective/emotional terrain it would be interesting. After all, an artwork is experiential (not objective in the way that academic research attempts to be) and can open the viewer to issues of the body through the body.

Christine moves on to talk about the generation of genomic texts; these codes are immutable. Christine points out that genomic text is conceptualized in a manner that it is iconic, rigid, fixed. In this sense the genome text is pure and without meaning thus blocking any spontaneous associations or taking on any meaning without expert advice. As a result nothing can be projected onto this.

I am curious about the sense in which she uses the term projection - in my view, all matter, including text, can become a site of projection.

Christine offers to send me a copy of her paper 'Genes, Genomes and identity: Projections on Matter'. We have arranged to discuss these ideas further next week.

A couple of further thoughts: If genomic text is thought of as an abstraction, pure form there may be analogies with the architectural forms of high-modernist architecture (incidentally built to accommodate the ideal human form), and also the visual form of the scientific laboratory and the technology it accommodates. Text, technology, architecture, each one reinforcing the material/visual qualities of the other. These are bound together in the representation of the genetic information as a building block (non-transmutable). These block perception of the genome as a mobile, interactive and fluid space.

It may be that the most useful thing to do is to use actual moving images / text (also moving / fluid (think of Marcel Broodthaers work) to convey the genomic space as it is now being conceptualized. After all, the material evidence for the theory (of cell/genome activity) is available in the form of real time sequences (as shown by Nick Talbot).

I am especially interested in the stylistic possibilities of text produced by Luciana Parisi and Tiziana Terranova. I need to contact them to ask about the possibility of incorporating their academic writing into an artwork.

 Steve Hughes brought up a series of flower images on his computer that showed death and separation. These were elemental / painterly images - quite extraordinary. Promised to show 'sexual conflict' in flowers. Wonder about the form of these images and possibility of projecting these onto lab coat forms.