The error bred in the bone

Polygon model of skull from Digitising Diseases website. http://www.digitiseddiseases.org

Some of you may well know that I have been working on getting a project off the ground with the Biological Anthropological Research Centre (or BARC) at the University of Bradford.
Thanks to Arts Council England funding the project will finally begin next week with an extended visit to the Centre.

So how did it all happen…… At the opening of Cloth and Memory2 last summer I met Professor Keith Manchester  who was worried about my ECG in the piece.  In fact a number of people expressed concern at the ECG until it was explained to them that for most of the ECG on the piece my heart rate was at 181bpm and that’s why it wasn’t looking ‘normal’.  At the very beginning where my bpm was 60 you could see it was fine.

 

So Keith and I got talking and he suggested that I should visit the University and see the fascinating things they do.  8 months and a G4A award later the chance for me to make a body of work in response to what is going on in the Centre is now finally about to begin.

So what will I be looking at….?  To be honest I am not sure what the focus will be yet.  They have some amazing stuff in their collection or passing through their hands…everything from medieval leper bones to ancient and modern ivory and scrimshaw having its DNA analysed.  They have been very involved in the Digitised Diseases project that allows you to examine and rotate a whole range of archaeological bones indicating various diseases.
http://www.digitiseddiseases.org/alpha/

I intend to tell the story of this project through my blog so please keep reading!