SCHRÖDINGER’S BABY
Schrödinger’s Baby(2019/20), TZUSOO alludes to the popular thought experiment devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. Schrödinger proposed a scenario in which a cat is locked in a box with an unstable radioactive atom that could potentially begin to emit radiation and release a toxic gas. However, there is no way to say with certainty when or indeed whether this will happen without opening the box. The result is a paradox, with Schrödinger asserting that the cat enters a state of superposition that makes it impossible to say whether it is alive or dead.The South Korean artist translates this famous paradox into the reality of her own life, creating a digital baby in virtual space. Based on her inner grappling with potential motherhood, TZUSOO bought the digital model of a developing embryo, refining it according to her own ideas. She is free to determine the sex, skin colour and other characteristics or to dispense with all specifications so as to avoid stereotyping. In Schrödinger’s Baby, TZUSOO thus discuss core aspects of her work including reflection on gender and origin for which she also draws on her personal experience as a South Korean artist in Europe.

Maia Urstad, a sound artist based in Bergen, Norway, joined ISIS in 2009 for a 3-week research residency. Maia’s research was based around using and adapting portable radio systems and local FM-transmissions. Maia explored the Northumberland coast where she carried out experiments with multiple radios, broadcastings signals across the North Sea from the cliffs of Howic and the beaches surrounding Bamburgh in an attempt to communicate across the sea, attempting to reach her home town of Bergen.

babel

Babel consists of around 800 radios of varying ages, from the beautiful, large, valve radios which make up the bottom tiers of the tower to the smaller mass-produced electronic radios of recent years which form its summit. By using radios of decreasing size from the floor to the ceiling, Meireles emphasises the perspective and the sheer height of the work.
Furthermore, Babel constitutes a survey of radios from the 1920s to the present day, which in turn presents what the artist has described as ‘an archaeological sample of events’. Due to the time-based nature of the medium of radio, no two experiences of this work are ever the same.