Genetic Automata visual story

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Visiting Wellcome Collection visual story

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Heart n Soul’s The Beautiful Octopus Club © Tim Mitchell

The Beautiful Octopus Club visual story

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Wellcome Collection

Accessibility at Wellcome Collection visual story

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Hard Graft Exhibition at Wellcome Collection

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Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights visual story

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Jason and the Adventure of 254, an exhibition by Jason Wilsher-Mills at Wellcome Collection. Gallery Photo: Benjamin Gilbert

Jason and the Adventure of 254 visual story

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The Kola Nut Cannot Be Contained, a display at Wellcome Collection. Gallery Photo: Eszter Bonyi

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The Kola Nut Cannot Be Contained visual story

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Genetic Automata exhibition, Dust to Data. Gallery Photo: Steven Pocock

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Information to help you plan and prepare for your visit.

The exhibition is at Wellcome Collection.

Genetic Automata exhibition is in two of our galleries on level 1.

For more information about opening times, accessibility,  and how to get here, take a look at the Visiting Wellcome visual story.

We want everyone to have a safe, comfortable, and enjoyable experience. Click on the link to see our guidelines for protecting yourself and others.

Genetic Automata is an exhibition with four films by the artists Larry Achiampong and David Blandy.

How science shapes how we think about race.

The false belief that there are biological differences between races.

Eugenics – a racist and ableist idea that some people should not be allowed to have children.

The films have out loud sound via speakers.

The film rooms have low lighting and large bright screens. 

There is seating inside and outside the rooms.

There are also 26 objects in the exhibition. These include books, films, objects, and photographs.

The works have warnings about racist and ableist content.

The films are between 10–15 minutes long.

You do not need to watch them from the beginning, but if you want to, there is a countdown screen outside each room showing when the film next starts. 

This is a map of the exhibition showing the five different rooms.

Larry Achiampong and David Blandy are artists and friends. They make work about how they are treated differently and why that might be.

There is a 10-minute interview with the artists shown on a screen with headphones.

There is a display case showing some of the films, books and videogames Larry and David are influenced by. Soft electronic music plays out loud from below the display case.

In this room there are racist objects that were used to categorise people.

They include instruments which were used to measure and count people.

They were owned by Francis Galton and Karl Pearson, who worked at University College London in the early 1900s.

They were used to discriminate against people based on how they looked.

'_GOD_MODE_' is a film is about eugenics and how it is still present today. The film is 12 minutes long. 

The film starts with a close up of Francis Galton’s fingerprints.

The first half of the film takes place in the real world.

The second half of the film is computer generated.

'A Lament for Power' is about the ethics of using people’s DNA without their permission. The film is 13 minutes long. 

It is inspired by the videogame 'Resident Evil 5', which features zombies

A large black cell moves across different landscapes. The screen goes entirely black for the last minute of the film.

'Dust to Data' is about how archaeology has been used to make up racist stories about human history. The film is 15 minutes long.

The film shows ancient skulls found in archaeological digs.

The film merges objects from the real world with landscapes from videogames.

'A Terrible Fiction' is about how scientists have ordered and classified nature, including people. The film is 11 minutes long. 

There is an additional exit to the exhibition in this space, you could leave this way, or go back through the gallery to the main exit. 

The film includes footage of stuffed birds.

The film has close ups of the artists’ skin and eyes.

There are different accessible guides that are available at the start of the exhibition.

The digital guide has audio described and British Sign Language tours of the exhibition.

You can watch or listen by scanning QR codes with a smart phone.

Or you can listen to AD by picking up a touch button handset and pressing the number of the audio stop.

Please ask a member of gallery staff for help with digital guides.

Text transcripts of audio-only content are also available in the gallery. 

Genetic Automata visual story

What’s on this page

Introduction to Genetic Automata