Berrada is concerned with some of the same things I seem to be focusing on – but his practice is completely different from where mine is heading for now. I can’t find my way out of representation and while I am inspired by the scientific theories I see, he actually uses the chemicals and scientific practice to make the work.

“The aim of science is to produce new knowledge, whereas I am trying to disorient our points of reference. My practice is artistic, but it uses the tools and methods introduced by science, and the protocols of scientific experiments. Science has provided us with excellent tools for apprehending the real world, as well as for manipulating and giving form to reality. I use these tools as a visual artist to produce forms and images that do not have a specific scientific purpose.” (From an interview on the Hayward Gallery website, 2019)

https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/blog/interview-artist-hicham-berrada

The film I made for DI&C A5 began with the word deviation which I noticed being used a lot in Turin’s essay about morphogenesis. I think what I end up doing is making connections with the language we use  – leading to more opaque and less comprehensible results than Berrada’s. But I wonder if that somehow links to the way language operates; it contains information that isn’t always easy to unravel and see so clearly.

I have been looking this weekend with more depth at epigenetics (with frustratingly limited science knowledge). Our DNA is spooled around histone proteins (I think!) and that makes it impossible for all of the DNA information to be read. Epigenetics is the way a second level of information – highlights and blackouts and markers means some information to be accessed and triggered. I’m still figuring it out! … I’m wondering if this could be a good metaphor for how language works too – maybe, maybe not. Will see.

Berrada’s work will be at the Hayward Gallery from tomorrow and I intend to go along and see it as soon as possible.

“For this solo exhibition – his first in a UK institution – the artist brings together a number of new and existing works, including a series of illuminated tanks that feature delicate and ephemeral chemical landscapes, and a large-scale immersive video installation that explores morphogenesis, the biological process that causes an organism to change shape.” (Hayward Gallery website, 2019)

https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/hayward-gallery-art/hicham-berrada