REPRODUCTION JOE MAGEE

Watershed Media Centre, Bristol, England. 22 August - 6 October 1998

Publicity text
As scientists tinker with genetic codes, Joe Magee tinkers with other structures - using the computer to produce images and text repeatedly inserting random mutations. Magee sets out to mimic genetic manipulation though his method of work and perhaps, obliquely to question some features of this branch of science. His digital prints are assembled from preexisting pictures and objects, reproducing animals, humans and plants to create flocks, groups, patterns interspersed with random scribblings, signs and other codes. Dolly the cloned sheep took 277 attempts. We do not question the reason for her existence, merely the ethics of the process. For Magee there are parallels between the geneticist and the artist Ñ both are compulsively reconstructing in pursuit of the intangible.

Artist's Notes
Reproduction is a sequel to the work presented in Damage, my first exhibition. It contained several images from Damage - which was part of the meaning of the show, and its title 'Reproduction' reflected this. Damage essentially investigated ideas of genetic manipulation, but Reproduction began to look at more cerebral forms of replication. The essense of the exhibition were the white rabbits - endlessly reproducing on the Watersheds monitors in the form of a simple animation. The rabbits represent the crossroads of fecundity and experimentation. The actual rabbits heads used are those from laboratory photographs. But the white rabbit is also memetically fecund - people remember it as the ultimate logotype. As I produced the images I became more and more interested in the idea of memetic engineering. The ultimate image, Nazi Function, was misunderstood as a reference to Nazi experimentation on people. The image was in fact an investigation into memetics (or loosely - viruses of the mind). It directly compared biological replication (the rabbits) with virulent cerebral replication (naziism). Although there was one complaint about this image during the show, most people were, and are, perplexed by it. It is one of my most challenging and uncompromising images.