Cathy's Art Diary

Though provoking but also uneven exhibition at the Science Gallery at King’s College looking at the role of AI in medicine. This show raised some interesting issues via a series of installations some of which were very engaging but others I found hard to understand. It was a study in ways of presenting complex information. One moan would be that that, ironically given the subject, some of the av and interactive IT things didn’t work such as one mounted iPad where the next button was hidden by the mount. I would also have liked a bit more on what is happening already not just the ethics of what might happen. My favourite piece was an interactive display where you were teaching a computer bot about love. I did find myself engaging and laughing at its interactions. I particularly loved when it asked questions from song lyrics “What’s love got to do with it?” It was hard to photograph the works so have one of the last creepy one installation with looked at where discarded tech end...

Unclear exhibition at the Science Gallery at King’s College exploring issues around migration and violence. The commentary says it “uses arts-based methods to explore how different types of violence at intimate, urban and national levels are experienced through the body.” This was all very worthy and probably a good representation of some research but it needed to be shown in a more engaging and accessible way. Where it was positioned, it was only going to get a short term, passing audience so it needed to have a more immediate effect. I mainly looked at the photographs which compared South London with Israeli-Palestinian areas. I’m not sure I got a sense of violence from them just of ugliness and harsh environments. There were some good pictures though. There are some videos but I didn’t have time to engage with them. From the commentary I think they were about Latin American migrants to the UK. No end date given but i would assume early September from dates when new things s...

Strange exhibition at the Science Gallery looking at anxiety and how an anxious state can fuel positive action. I admit I’d already done a lot that day but I found this show difficult to understand and instead of enlightening me on the topic of anxiety it seemed to bring it on. There were some interesting installations blending contemporary art and science but I found them quite confused and difficult to understand. I liked Alice May Williams’ paintings based on the colours of women’s football strips and using supportive phrases from coaches and Cian McConn’s “Some People Have No Shoes” which lists observations of others which changed his self-criticism of himself.   I like the work shown which by Sarah Howe which used mirrors and blocks to reveal and hide videos of repeated gestures of anxiety. It induced a feeling of confusion and a desire to work out where images were coming from. Closes 19 January 2020

Fascinating exhibition at King’s College Science Gallery looking at how the human body repairs and regenerates both at a physical and metaphysical level and how science can enhance this. I admit I found a lot of these pieces were interesting and beautiful but I must admit I didn’t understand a lot of the descriptions. The gallery itself was exhibit with wooden structures and textiles dividing the space and described as a “prosthesis to the gallery”. My favourite piece was the bee hive shown here where the heat generated by the bees is helping to grow human tissue in the pyramid on the top. A very helpful gallery assistant saw me looking at it and came over to describe it. I was fascinated to watch the bees coming in and out of the gallery via a tube in the wall and the assistant told me about how they speed up or slow down depending on the weather and time of day. Don’t worry the hive is fully encased and there were no bees flying round the show. Closes 12 May 2019 ...

Thought provoking exhibition at the new Science Gallery at King’s College London looking at addiction. The show uses both scientific discoveries and contemporary art to look at when habit becomes an addiction and when pleasures become darker. I was fascinated by the section which looked at phone and digital addiction which got me a bit worried about the amount I use my phone.   The commentary pointed out how addictive behaviour increased activity in the brain’s reward centre which creates dopamine and discusses how recovery processes deal with that loss of dopamine. Works I enjoyed included “No Change” a slot machine by Kyros which just shot your money back out at you and the broken sugar table pictures here. Also a screen which just says “Please don’t like this” with a Like button, needless to say 274 people had pressed it when I was there and I must say it was very tempting and “The Curtain of Broken Dreams”, made by Natasha Caruan made of found gold rings. Close...