Louise Mackenzie

Zone of Inhibition 2019 

HD Video with sound. 14’03 

Zone of Inhibition is a short film developed as a result of artist-led performative genetics workshops created in collaboration with Dr Ana Topf and Dr Stephanie Carr of the Institute of Genetic Medicine, Newcastle and ASCUS Art and Science, Edinburgh. The title refers to the space (generally on a petri dish) in which microbial growth is inhibited by antibiotics. The space is a threshold in which microbes encounter humanity’s resistance to them as other. Workshop participants were filmed in a fictional, human-scale zone of inhibition, a space of encounter that is both intensely personal yet also restrictive. In this space of encounter, Mackenzie assumed the role of oracle, to facilitate dialogue between cells and those who have genetically modified them. Zone of Inhibition has been presented at: ISEA2020 Art Programme, Montreal; The Literary & Philosophical Society, Newcastle and Summerhall, Edinburgh. An edited transcript of the film is available at PUBLIC Journal #59: Interspecies Communication.  

In partnership with the Cultural Negotiation of Science, Northumbria University, the Institute of Genetic Medicine, Newcastle University and ASCUS Laboratory, Summerhall, Edinburgh. 

http://www.publicjournal.ca/59-interspecies-communication/ 

https://www.ascus.org.uk/whats-on/transformation-thinking-through-life 

Lively Material 2018 

HD Video with sound. 17’35 

Lively Material is a short film, presented as a form of a video diary that follows a thought from the mind of the artist into the body of a genetically modified organism, the microbial laboratory workhorse E. coli. The thought is translated by the artist from a spoken phrase into a code that becomes represented as physical material: synthetic DNA, which is then stored within the living bodies of E. coli bacteria. The lively material of the organisms becomes both container and commodity in the context of the laboratory. Through her laboratory diary, Mackenzie explores how her relationship to microbial bodies alters when DNA is stored in a cultural, rather than scientific context. Lively Material forms part of artist Louise Mackenzie's doctoral research project, Evolution of a Subject, exploring our relationship to living organisms as resources in the context of the laboratory. 

In partnership with the Cultural Negotiation of Science, Northumbria University, the Institute of Genetic Medicine, Newcastle University and ASCUS Laboratory, Summerhall, Edinburgh. 

Body Shopping 2020 

HD Video with sound. 52’26 

Body Shopping - Challenging Convention in the Donation and Use of Bodily Materials through Art Practice was a panel conceived for the conference Taboo - Transgression - Transcendence in Art and Science hosted by the University of Applied Arts, Vienna in 2020. This video, shared prior to the panel, comprises collaged excerpts from one-to-one interviews conducted online by artist Louise Mackenzie with fellow artists Tarsh Bates, Isabel Burr-Raty, WhiteFeather Hunter, Charlotte Jarvis, Theresa Schubert, Miriam Simun and Hege Tapio during September and October 2020 as part of Mackenzie's ongoing research. The artists discuss projects in which they have personally worked with human bodily materials, from their own bodies and from the bodies of others. They also discuss the ethics of using the body as a resource within art and within science, and the possibility of developing a biobank that exists for more than biomedical use. 

Louise Mackenzie PhD is an artist and Lecturer in Contemporary Art Practice at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design.