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Genetic Automata

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Photograph of a dark exhibition space featuring a projected video on a large screen. The walls of the room slope inwards and are criss-cross of black wooden battens on grey fabric. The ceiling is a blue cloth draped over several cross joists. To the left the video shows a computer generated image of a sandy shoreline on which a large human skull sits, bathed in sunlight. To the right 3 visitors watch the film. Closest to the camera is a young woman seated in a wheelchair, her hand resting on her knee. Stood next to her is a woman in a green shirt who is using crutches. At the far end stands an individual in a yellow hooded top and blue jeans.
Genetic Automata exhibition, Dust to Data. Gallery Photo: Steven Pocock. © Larry Achiampong and David Blandy.

‘Genetic Automata’ is an ongoing body of video works by artists Larry Achiampong and David Blandy exploring race and identity in an age of avatars, videogames and DNA ancestry. The four films in the series investigate where deeply ingrained ideas about race come from and the role that science has played in shaping these perceptions. The exhibition premieres ‘_GOD_MODE_’, the newest film in the series, commissioned by Wellcome Collection, Black Cultural Archives and Wellcome Connecting Science.

Exhibition highlights

Photograph of an exhibition gallery space made up of black painted walls and a wooden floor. To the left of the scene is a video installation showing two individuals in conversation. In front of the screen is a long backless bench. To the right of the scene is a display case containing mounted screens showing video content set into a blue fabric backboard. In the distance, mounted on the wall are several large photographs accompanied by titles. There's a photograph of a taxidermy bird with the title A Terrible Fiction, a photograph of a sphinx with the title Dust to Data and a computer generated image which is partially obscured with the title A Lament for Power.
Genetic Automata exhibition, Entrance lobby. Gallery Photo: Steven Pocock. © Larry Achiampong and David Blandy.
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Larry Achiampong and David Blandy are artists and friends. Their collaboration is grounded in their love of popular culture and shared interest in the postcolonial condition. Much of their work investigates the difference in their experiences. Achiampong is a working-class Black man of Ghanaian heritage and Blandy is a middle-class white man of English heritage. The lobby area shows an interview with the artists and some of the materials that have inspired them.

Photograph of a dark exhibition space featuring a projected video on a large screen. A backless bench seat is arranged facing the screen. The walls of the room are criss-cross of black wooden battens on grey fabric. The video shows an image of a taxidermy bird lying on its back with a label attached to its legs.
A Terrible Fiction. Gallery Photo: Steven Pocock. © Larry Achiampong and David Blandy.
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‘A Terrible Fiction’ is the first of four films in the ‘Genetic Automata’ series. It investigates classification and how scientists have tried to order the natural world. It highlights the role of John Edmonstone, a formerly enslaved Black man living in Edinburgh. He taught taxidermy to Charles Darwin, enabling Darwin to formulate the theory of natural selection, yet Edmonstone’s significance remains largely unacknowledged.

Vertical diptych of two computer generated avatars created as part of video gameplay. The avatar on the top shows a Black man with short hair and facial hair staring to camera. The avatar on the bottom Shows a white man with a shaved head and beard, also looking to camera. Both avatars' heads fill the frame, copped at the mid-forehead and just below the chin. Behind each head is a plain grey background.
Gaming avatars for Larry Achiampong (top) and David Blandy (bottom). © Larry Achiampong and David Blandy.
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The film layers Darwin’s bird collection with microscopic images of the artists’ skin and videogame avatars inspired by their own DNA ancestry results. It references videogames involving the misuse of genetic material such as Metal Gear Solid and the Final Fantasy and Metroid series.

Photograph of a dark exhibition space featuring a projected video with subtitles on a large screen. 3 bench seats are arranged facing the screen. The walls of the room are criss-cross of black wooden battens on grey fabric. The video shows a computer generated film of a glass and steel building being engulfed by a large black expanding spherical mass.
A Lament for Power. Gallery Photo: Steven Pocock. © Larry Achiampong and David Blandy.
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‘A Lament for Power’ is inspired by Henrietta Lacks, a Black American woman whose cancer cells were taken without her or her family’s knowledge and became known as HeLa cells. They are considered immortal because they can replicate endlessly and have been used in some of the world’s most significant biomedical developments. The film also references Resident Evil 5, a videogame based in West Africa where Black people appear as zombies. The film draws parallels with the undying nature of HeLa cells and associated concerns about agency and consent.

Photograph of a dark exhibition space featuring a projected video on a large screen. Two bench seats are arranged facing the screen. The walls of the room slope inwards and are criss-cross of black wooden battens on grey fabric. The ceiling is a cloth draped over several cross joists. The video shows a computer generated image of a shoreline set against a red rock face. On the sandy beach is a human skull in front of a floating white pyramid shape.
Genetic Automata exhibition, Dust to Data. Gallery Photo: Steven Pocock. © Larry Achiampong and David Blandy.
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‘Dust to Data’ examines the tangled histories of archaeology, colonialism and eugenics. It references British archaeologist Flinders Petrie, a eugenicist who believed there was a direct correlation between skull size, race and intelligence. He also used archaeology to justify colonialism. Petrie’s theories were rejected by US sociologist and civil rights leader W E B Du Bois, among others, but embraced by the academic establishment. The artists draw an analogy between archaeology and modern-day data-mining, which both use fragments of evidence to construct stories about people.

Photograph of a dark exhibition space featuring a projected video with subtitles on a large screen. 5 bench seats are arranged facing the screen. The walls of the room are a criss-cross of black wooden battens on grey fabric. The video shows a scene split into 6 squares by a black grid, 3 across by 2 down. In each square is a slightly different view of the same plaster cast head. The subtitles below read 'Each example deemed good,'
_GOD_MODE_. Gallery Photo: Steven Pocock. © Larry Achiampong and David Blandy.
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‘_GOD_MODE_’ is the latest work in the ‘Genetic Automata’ series. It explores the long-lasting effects of scientific racism on today’s society, from education to health, politics and more. The title refers to a version of videogame play where the player is invincible. The first half takes place in the real world and is filmed on location at UCL’s Science Collections and the Wellcome Genome Campus.

Photograph of a dark exhibition space featuring a projected video with subtitles on a large screen. 5 bench seats are arranged facing the screen. The walls of the room are a criss-cross of black wooden battens on grey fabric. The video shows a computer generated scene of an ancient Egyptian settlement, with towers, hieroglyphics and sphinxes. The subtitles below read 'The collapse of invisible walls'.
_GOD_MODE_. Gallery Photo: Steven Pocock. © Larry Achiampong and David Blandy.
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In the second half we enter a videogame environment and follow a huge spider, referencing the West African folk legend of Anansi, as it travels through different landscapes. This narrative explores whether empathy is enough in the struggle against injustice and asks what actions we need to take to enact real-world change.

Photograph of an exhibition display case with transparent perspex sides and top, containing 4, three dimensional cast heads on plinths, sitting on a blue fabric base. Behind the case, on the wall is a repeating patterned wallpaper featuring an eye in varying degrees of fragmentation. The wall paper stretches from left to right and top to bottom filling the wall. In front of the case are 2 information panels.
Series of life and death masks including one of Francis Galton (far right). Gallery Photo: Steven Pocock. Courtesy of UCL Science Collections.
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‘_GOD_MODE_’ explores the cultural legacy of eugenics. This movement was started by Francis Galton, whose death mask is shown on the right here, at University College London in the early 1900s. ‘Eugenics’ comes from the Ancient Greek for “good in birth”. Galton coined the term to refer his idea that selective breeding could improve humans.

Photograph of an exhibition display case in a dark gallery space. The case contains a hand sized brass device with levers and dials, displayed suspended above a blue fabric base. In front of the case is an information panel.
Pocket register. Gallery Photo: Steven Pocock. Courtesy of UCL Science Collections.
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A selection of objects that feature in ‘_GOD_MODE_’ are shown in the exhibition. They were owned by Galton and Karl Pearson, the first Professor of Eugenics at University College London. Eugenicists created a hierarchy of people based on race, character and health. They aimed ultimately to rid society of those they deemed unfit by encouraging only those they considered to have desirable traits to have children. The items, such as this pocket registrator, were used to measure and categorise people.

Photograph of an exhibition display case in a dark gallery space. The case contains 2 exhibits. On the left is a series of 6 photographic negatives and transparencies in a 3 by 2 grid, backlight on a lightbox. On the right is a box of glass eyes containing 16 eyes in a. 4 by 4 grid. In front of the case are 2 information panels.
Studies of Jewish school children (left) and a box of 16 glass eyes (right). Gallery Photo: Steven Pocock. Courtesy of UCL Science Collections.
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These photographs and glass eyes were used to study small groups of Jewish schoolchildren living in the East End of London in the 1920s and measure their eugenic worth. Conclusions based on these studies’ racist assumptions were presented as “objective science” to support eugenic beliefs. They fuelled antisemitic immigration policies.

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About the partners

Black Cultural Archives

Black Cultural Archives is an independent, national registered charity whose mission is to collect, preserve and celebrate the histories of people of African and Caribbean descent in the UK and to inspire and give strength to individuals, communities, and society.

Wellcome Connecting Science

Wellcome Connecting Science's mission is to enable everyone to explore genomic science and its impact on research, health and society.