Genetic Automata part 4: _GOD_MODE_

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<p>"Genetic Automata is a four-part series of video installations. The fourth and final part, _GOD_MODE_, addresses eugenics and the history of anthropology, tracing the factors that catalysed eugenic policies from the right and left of politics and gave them weight in an increasingly precise scientific environment. It looks at figures such as Francis Galton (1822- 1911), the founder of the Eugenics movement who established it as an academic discipline at UCL. The work draws an explicit link between anthropological interest and the development of eugenics, and the subsequent collapse of the notion of the "objective outsider" after the crisis in the discipline. This will lead into research on new manifestations of eugenic thinking, from transhumanism to immigration rhetoric. Working with geneticists from Wellcome Connecting Science, based at the Wellcome Genome Campus, Cambridgeshire, the work will merge contemporary scientific research with virtual imagery both created and found in videogame environments, and video documentary of objects from anthropological archives and collections. It will examine the present state of understandings of race and identity, and how they are embedded in the culture we consume."-- Summarised from documentation provided by curator.</p>
<p>"'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 series investigates where deeply ingrained ideas about race come from and the role that science has played in shaping these perceptions."-- From website. <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/exhibitions/ZAW0PxQAACcG-pX8">https://wellcomecollection.org/exhibitions/ZAW0PxQAACcG-pX8</a></p>

_GOD_MODE_ / Larry Achiampong & David Blandy.

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