Helen Scalway received her training (M.A. Fine Art) at Chelsea College of Art, London University of the Arts. Her practice is concerned with the representation of complex contemporary spaces, which are still coming into being. She works through the creation of diagrams, drawings, collages and models. She has exhibited on many occasions in the UK and internationally and her work features in several books.
Micespace builds on two innovative aspects of Helen’s work on the visual representation of complexity and its links to knowledge and meaning. The first is the resurgence of drawing as a vital form of thinking, open to emergence and experimentation. The second is the growing interest in visualization, using diagrams to explore complex spatial relations, building on Deleuze’s conceptualisation of ‘the diagram [as a] map of relations between forces’ (Deleuze, 1988:36).
Gail Davies is Professor in Human Geography at the University of Exeter. Her work incorporates insights from geography, science and technology studies and anthropology to explore the spatiality of knowledge practices, biotechnology and emerging animal geographies. She is currently researching the changing geographies of laboratory animal research.
Micespace incorporates two contexts from Gail’s recent work. The first is the emergence of large-scale projects in functional genomics, seeking to understand gene function by developing mutations for every gene in the mouse genome. The second is the globalisation of biomedical research, as international collaborations construct new organisms, institutions and infrastructures to realise the biological value of the genomic research.
After earlier science/art collaborations focused on the singular icon of DNA, we suggest emerging biological practices require novel forms of visualisation to reflect the growing attention to complexity and spatiality in biological processes and organisms and explore the epistemic and ethical questions they raise. We offer the images on this website as steps towards an innovative and questioning visualisation of the changing spaces and species of the post-genomic sciences.
