Blackbird Rook presents

Weirder Science

Curated by Karen David

12th April - 17th May 2023

Sarah Baker, Nicola Bealing, William Cobbing, Mark Connolly, Karen David, Brian Griffiths, Samuel Herbert, Andy Holden, Paul Housley, Caterina Lewis, Andi Magenheimer, Alex Gene Morrison, Hannah Murgatroyd, Tahmina Negmat, Julie-Ann Simpson, Zoe Spowage, Niall Campbell Strachan and Kate Street.

LINK TO THE SHOW

To trans-mutate is the action or the state of changing into another form – the mutation. Form or matter alter into a different thing, neither fixed to its new form, nor still in its old body. Matter is being changed. Concepts are in flux.

Transmutation can be found in almost all fields, most notably perhaps the sciences. Its physical illustration can be found in science fiction and fantasy, and Superpower Wiki, a resource for all super-power fans, has a long list of transmutation applications such as evaporation, incineration, creation, alchemy and telekinesis, and a longer list of characters across various mediums such as comics, animations, role playing games, films and literature who use this superpower to various ends. There are also examples in animatronics and early CGI films of the 80s and 90s, such as in Terminator 2 (1991) where we see the T-1000 transmuting from flesh to liquid metal; or in lycanthropy tropes such as An American Werewolf in London (1981), or Teen Wolf (1985) where the ‘bitten’ grow long hair and nails as they transmutate slowly and creakingly into werewolf. Energies are channelled and transform matter, from director to screen, from character to monster. In Weird Science (1986) a Barbie doll is transmutated into Lisa via amateur hacking on a Memotech MTX512 computer and a fluke lightning strike.

The works selected in Weirder Science show a leaning towards transmutations where figures and objects are in the state of being changed into another form, either permanently or temporarily, completely or partially.

They ooze out and shed skin, twisting and merging, moving across dimensions. In this fantastical space there is an act of mutating into another form – be that grotesque, humorous, alchemical, mythological or illusionistic – a fiction is taking place and altering the scene as we watch on. Impossible monsters are made and destroyed, arms morphing into tongues, tongues wagging with tails and tales, suns rise and moons fall, and eyes watch out and back at us. Giant fish, loving swans, dancing puppets, dripping shells and flying crafts all take their cues from recognisable myths and mutate themselves into a new shape

Here the image-makers can hold up a mirror to the past, taking old symbols and updating them to potentially shape a different future, as the musings of the artist are channelled into material. If this change can be witnessed slowly, transmutation can be a gentle act of progress, enabling a constant change and preventing stagnation. Powerful and futuristic, the reality that was before cannot be maintained, and a sense of a new form in a hybrid body is at play, one that now reckons with the slippery mythmaking of our contemporary fictions.

Karen David

Karen David is a London-based artist currently completing a PhD in Fine Art. She is a lecturer in Painting & Printmaking at Glasgow School of Art. She writes, lecturers, workshops and curates around the theme of fictional narratives and fictional rooms, weaving the historical and the imagined together

David graduated MA Fine Art at Wimbledon College of Arts in 2012. In 2014 she undertook a research trip to Marfa, Texas and Roswell, New Mexico. In 2015 she was Artist in Residence at Islington Mill, Manchester, and in 2016 won the Artist in Residence award on the BA Painting Wimbledon College of Arts. In 2018 David was awarded a studentship for a practice-led PhD with a studio focus on mythmaking, fictional narrative and para-anthropology.