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As you enter into the space you are confronted with a dramatic and disturbing combination of images and sound. A wall of figures, naked and staring straight at the audience span the width of the gallery space. The life size figures initially appear motionless , gradually, and at different paces they appear to come to life, become aware of their surroundings and of you the audience. The figures illuminate the otherwise empty dark space, the different nuances of what is termed white skin glow, caught as if behind the screen, pressing against it. Enclosed and compressed in the darkness and seemingly unaware of one another. The abstract tones of the soundtrack envelope you and compound further a sense of the figures isolation. These images live behind the screen in a constricted cycle - displayed, subtely manipulated, changing specimens becoming aware of their surroundings and of their entrapment.
In a sense we are all encased in this space - we are forced to think about the comparisons, concious or otherwise, that we make between our own and other bodies, what we believe is ideal or perfect and how we or they compare.
The expanse of the screen and the choreography of the bodies make the detection of changes to the forms through time more difficult to isolate and detect, the audience a re left with a sense that changes are happening, a questioning that the bodies are not quiet right but can not usually detect when or where or what the changes are.
When we can isolate and alter the individual building blocks of construction, be this the pixel or the gene, the ability to alter, reconstruct and represent what appears to be truthis limitless. Cosmetic modification, organ replacement, prosthetics, cryonics, gender alteration, cloning and genetic enhancement have all changed our perceptions of the physical body. Stages Elements Humans raises issues surrounding the possibilities of genetic engineering and what this could mean when genetic alterations / corrections / mutilations, can be purchased as easily as cosmetic enhancement.
(source: www.imaging.dundee.ac.uk)
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