Grace Woodcock selects 'Mind of my Mind' by Octavia Butler. Published in 1977, it details the development of a new species of telepaths led by Mary, a mixed-race young woman raised in poverty. In our conversation, we discuss what distinguishes Octavia Butler as a unique sci-fi voice as we focus on Grace's debut London solo exhibition GUT-BRAIN at Castor, exploring the ideas behind her research-led practice around the body, mind, tech, science and alternative medicine.
0:00-0:20 Summary of the book 'Mind of my Mind', wondering how to make the book into a movie, afro-futurism, what it might be like to be in someone else's mind, hybridity, blue-blackness, meaning through action, transcending racial delineation, transracial, breeding programme elitism, shapeshifting gender and race, jealousy of the next generation.
20:00-45:00 Grace's art practice, retro futurism, the current dystopian edge, pills for sex, pushing the limits of what it is to be human, NASA spaceship design, how sliding doors came about, shaping of sculptures around the body, memories in objects wrt Japanese Shinto, hidden materials, potential medicinal elements, gut as the original brain, the fate of the sea urchin brain, multiples, subconscious, conversation pits, the gut as a surveillance system for the body
45:00-55:00 other stuff about Grace, from her influences to the books she's reading now!
GRACE WOODCOCK
gracewoodcock.com
castor.gallery
BOOKS
Aldous Huxley 'Brave New World' by 1932
Jonathan Crary '24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep' 2013
Mark Fisher 'Capitalist Realism' 2009
Octavia E Butler 'The Patternist Series' 1976-1980, 'The Parable Series' 1993-1998, 'Bloodchild & Other Stories' 1995
Phillip K Dick 'The Man in the High Castle' 1962
Svetlanda Boym 'The Future of Nostalgia' 2001
Tibor Fischer 'The Collector Collector' 1997
FILMS & SERIES
'Barbarella' 1968
'Forbidden Planet' 1956
'Gattaca' 1997
'Star Treck' 1966-1969
'The Devil Girl from Mars' 1954
'The Jetsons' 1962-63
'The Man in the High Castle' 2015-2019
'The Truman Show' 1998
ARTISTS & THINKERS
Alison Wilding
Anicka Yi
Diane Simpson
Ernesto Neto
Glenn Ligon
Hannah Levy
Ittah Yoda
Keith Piper - BLK Art Group
Pakui Hardware
Paloma Proudfoot
Rafal Zajko
Saelia Aparicio
Wilhelm Reich - Orgone Theory
Symbolic Prose and Personal Politics (HELEN JOHNSON)
Closure Difficulties and Performative Reality (ELEONORA AGOSTINI)
Social Mobility and Beyond Language (MELANIE JACKSON)
Revealing Histories and Gender Variations (JULIET JACQUES)
Unwavering Sensitivity and Valuing Confusion (ANNA CLEGG)
Absent Mothers and Colonised Bodies (OLUKEMI LIJADU)
Suppressed Voices and Transformative Communities (RORY PILGRIM)
Word Play and Multiple Meanings (ANNA BARHAM)
Resistance Acoustics and Hopeful Uprising (MIKHAIL KARIKIS)
Arbitrary Traditions and Alien Observations (ROSIE GIBBENS)
Cultural Fear and Self Permission (CERI HAND)
Second Bodies and Talking Ice (SUSAN SCHUPPLI)
Disconnected Characters and Contradictory Spiritualism (SOPHIE RUIGROK)
Dark Humour and Watery Figures (NICOLA BEALING)
Slow Dancing and Fluid Encounters (FLORENCE PEAKE)
Channelling Spirits and Excluded Histories (JENNIFER HIGGIE)
Rural Reality and Complex Systems (KATIE PRATT)
Gender Entrapment and Performative Mythologies (ANNA PERACH)
CULTURE EXCHANGE - Artistic Protest and Rightful Sovereignty (PAOLA BALLA)
CULTURE EXCHANGE - Female Resilience and Bodily Playgrounds (INGRID BERTHON-MOINE)
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