Drawing to mirror, destabilize and enact

This article reflects upon an artist residency at the School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, hosted by Parkinson’s disease research. It examines three distinct ways in which drawing methods and the prints they generate respond to the medical research. First, drawing methods mirror practices of looking and visualizing in the research laboratories. The relationship between datasets, algorithms and the images they generate is explored to propose the unstable nature of visualizations. Second, the artist’s original drawings are destabilized and transformed into ‘mutants’ to mirror the genetic mutations that are at the heart of the research. By substituting artworks for scientific images in a public-facing event, scientists enact the uncertainties and ambiguities of interpreting visual material. Finally, visitors interact with a print installation to mirror and enact scientific practices of selecting, categorizing and searching for patterns to emerge in visualizations.