The medium in which I work, I would describe as simulation.
I guess the term "simulation" is only really emerging in art now.
Because I was interested in the subject of electricity,
and particularly the relationship between electricity and, I suppose,
the preservation of life, you know, through medical endeavour,
this particular illustration which relates to dead frogs which are then reanimated,
using this historic method of Galvanic reanimation,
struck me as something I should pay attention to.
The idea of electrical currents flowing through nerves was completely unknown.
I thought it was interesting to maybe recreate the experiment
using 3D portraits, virtual portraits, of live simulation
which recreated the experiments.
You could also bring in these wonderful hands which were sort of dangling.
I suppose, as part of that process,
I started to ask which frog would I use now in this experiment,
if we were to recreate it?
And quickly came across this candidate called the African clawed frog,
the X. laevis, African clawed frog.
The African clawed frog, one of the fourth or fifth headings on its Wikipedia entry
was that it was the very first vertebrate
to reproduce in zero gravity, in outer space.
This frog is brought to outer space, where it successfully produces a live offspring.
A very quick Google turned up this video from what was known as the Space Lab,
in which a scientist grapples with one of these frogs
that has been brought to space, to zero gravity,
to test if it can reproduce.
The frog actually kicks free and tumbles in zero gravity,
and the scientist struggles to regain control.
What fascinated me about that footage was that you've got this funny intersection
with the scientist between caring for the frog –
because it's an experiment, it's a valuable part of this experiment –
but also kind of an aggression in a way,
because it's trying to trap it again and control it.
It points to this much longer history of intersections and interactions
between animals and humans.
You've got an etching here from 1792,
which communicated something to me.
Then you've got a piece of YouTube video from 1992,
which also communicated something to me.
I suppose, in the end, the work mashes these things together into one artwork.
Here today, we are working with a dancer, Esther Balfe,
and she will manifest the missing scientist.
That scientist is only present through the actions of her hands.
So she will manifest these actions.
And we will motion-capture it using this studio.
I would think of this as a site of three-dimensional cinema here,
in that any action that occurs here, as long as it's properly spotted,
will be recorded both in time and in space.
And also not as "image" but, fundamentally, as information.
If I move my hand like this,
it becomes a stream of data from a series of points
about where it is in time and space.
So that's fine. Just a little bit further apart.
OK. That's fine.
Shoot.
In five, four, three, two, one...
And shot.
Go in five, four, three, two, one...
Cut.
Because we're making Simulation Engine based works,
you have these very distinct roles.
You've got a role for a coder or programmer.
Definitely a major role for a modeller.
Maybe just turn a little bit so we can see these things on the back...
Yeah, these are very, very distinct skill sets, in a way, each one.
The modeller is particularly important in this project
because we need these beautiful hands to be represented.
And then, of course, the frog – we call it frog Jesus –
that's sort of hanging crucified in the middle of the scene,
in a very formal sense.
I'm very, very ambitious aesthetically for this work.
I want to create what I call "an image object"
or a kind of sculptural photograph which has this very, very sharp resolution.
You know, that it is a very compelling representation of a lost scene,
a historical scene.
The final piece, the X. laevis artwork,
hovers between life and death,
in that you've got a frog suspended outside of the vessel of life,
which is Earth, and yet is kind of full of life,
occasionally manifesting these Galvanic reanimations, these kicks.
And these quite sterile scientific hands both kind of frame the frog.
They sort of protect it and present it
and also sort of threaten it,
you know that kind of interplay between the human world and the natural world
which is often entirely self-serving.