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Manipulating the evidence with deepfake technology

How can you be sure that the person speaking on the screen is genuine? Find out how sophisticated digital manipulation is blurring the boundaries between real and ‘deepfake’.

Photographs as evidence of gender identity and sexuality

Intriguing photographs from sexologists’ archives suggest they could have helped people explore their gender identity and sexuality.

Guide dogs or good dogs from the Middle Ages

Medieval illustrations often show blind people, sometimes with dogs. But working out whether these were actually guide dogs involves a mix of detailed detective work and expert speculation.

The relationship between science and art

Often seen as opposites, science and art both depend on observation and synthesis.

Native Americans and the dehumanising force of the photograph

In the second part of Native Americans through the 19th-century lens, we delve deeper into the ambivalent messages within the images.

The shocking ‘treatment’ to make lesbians straight

Being a lesbian has never been a crime in the UK, but 50 years ago, some psychologists experimented with treatments to try to ‘cure’ women of their orientation. Find out what this involved.

Vivid nights, dream-filled days

Each night, intense and memorable dreams create another life for Katie da Cunha Lewin. Find out how her waking and dreaming selves have become enmeshed, allowing her powerful self-knowledge.

Political brilliance and the power of self-promotion

How do you convince people you’re exceptional? Meet the ultimate self-styled genius.

Divining the world through an artist’s almanac

Amanda Couch's artists book, 'Huwawa in the Everyday: an almanac' is inspired by the entrail like folds of a medieval folding and its function as a guide for astrological divinations linking the body, health and the heavens. Like the original almanac her work is designed to be carried out into the wider world.

Why the scariest monsters look almost human

Something is wrong, but you’re not sure what. Amy Jones explores exactly why your worst nightmare is the monster that’s almost human.

Book design, dissected

Gwen Smith talks to art director Peter Dyer about imagery, colour, type and staying true to the pages within.

A portrait of me with my mother

A series of portraits with stand-in mothers helped Camilla Greenwell to process her grief, and then to question whether our photograph albums are ever really honest.

Medieval doodles

Fish, lute players and defaced demons: marginal doodles in some of Europe’s first printed books provide a tantalising glimpse into the late-medieval mind.

Race, religion and the Black Madonna

Mystery and controversy surround the dark-skinned religious icon who represents the Virgin Mary throughout the Catholic world.

Going viral in the online anti-vaccine wars

‘Anti-vaxxers’ are taking their message online using powerful images as well as words. But is the pro campaigners’ response any better?

Children in burns prevention campaigns

Whose responsibility is it to prevent accidental burns and scalds in the home? Shane Ewen’s research shows that it’s everyone’s concern.

Pain, politics and the power of photography

Art historian Giulia Smith explains what she most admires in the work of Jo Spence and Oreet Ashery, and how their approach makes illness political.

Plant portraits

The beautiful and mysterious illustrations in medieval herbals convey a wealth of knowledge about the plants they portray.

Mapping the body

These intricate anatomical drawings show how Ayurveda practitioners have explored the human body and how it works.

A reflection on art in a mental hospital

Artist Beth Hopkins explains how she used her experience of researching the Adamson Collection to create an embroidered wall hanging.

Sharing Nature: Parks for people

Paula Broom’s photograph of Sydney’s Centennial Park shows the complexity and joy we find in urban greenery.

Digitising Audrey

Building digital images of what Audrey created means that her work can be frozen in time – for the digital version, at least, the process of decay is halted, and any number of people can view it without the risk of damaging it.

Migraine, creativity and me

Novelist Lydia Ruffles explores how migraine has made her mind stretch, shrink, widen and change, and how it’s influenced her art.

How the Peckham Experiment inspired my fiction

Find out how an unruly mass of archive material from a 1930s radical health centre has inspired brand new writing.

Daria Martin on ‘Sensorium Tests’ and ‘At the Threshold’