Macrofauxology

Macro-fauxology is an installation of photographs of sculptures re-enacting actual scientific procedures used to help map the Human genome.

Following text from medical journals and science magazines, I subverted the processes of investigation they employ in their attempts to find our essence. By using everyday objects found in my studio (resin, playdoh, saliva, moss, cake, and glass cleaner, for example), basic lab equipment (pipettes, Bunsen burners, petri dishes), and simulating the more advanced apparatus (centrifuge = electric mixer), I create tissue samples, spores, germs, and genes. I then photograph these sculptures, creating something that speaks in the “style” of science and thus to the authority of science.

I am interested in the consensual notion that things scientific appear a particular way and that this appearance carries with it a certain supremacy of truth. Through this work, I’m considering how we visualize science and how that mode of visualization is used to support its authority.