Chrysalis

Artistic Director
Phoebe von Held

Inspired by
Diderot's D'Alembert's Dream

Animation
Joseph Pierce

Camera
Justin Badger and Rami Dvir

Editor
Farrah Drabu

Science/art coordinator
Simon Gould

Curated and commissioned by
ArtAkt

Cast
Candida Benson as Mlle de Lespinasse, Robin Lovell-Badge (Developmental Genetics, National Institute of Medical Research) 

Venue
Exhibition 'Crossing Over: Exchanges in Art & Biotechnology', The Royal Institution of Great Britain, London, 2 Oct - 21 Nov, 2008 

A society of ready-made men. An entire province populated by the dust of one man alone. What a pleasant thought. Denis Diderot, 'D'Alembert's Dream' (1769)

Written long before the advent of bioscience, Mlle de Lespinasse's eighteenth-century scientific fantasy about 'ready-made men'  envisions a brave new world of cloning which now has become reality trough fast-moving progress in today's biotechnologies.

Interweaving a passage from Diderot's D'Alembert's Dream with an interview with Robin Lovell-Badge , a researcher in developmental genetics, Chrysalis creates a double echo between history and future, fantasy and fact, science-fiction and reality.  

Using rotoscoped animation as a way of teasing out the imaginary from the real, the piece draws on a range of visual references from influential texts such as Buffon's Histoire Naturelle (1752-78) as well as contemporary scientific illustrations. In collaboration with animator Joseph Pierce, the video creates a visual language that evokes the physical context of the original text reworked through contemporary sensibilities. 

CATERINA ALBANO // CATALOGUE ESSAY Crossing-Over: Exchanges in Art & Biotechnology: Von Held captures Diderot's playful as well as critically sharp mixing of discourses, registers and voices, and reframes it within the current context of genetic experimentation, bringing the past to foreshadow ideas about the future.