Bloodlines, Rohini Devasher

Exhibition Label: "Cryptograph: An Exhibition for Alan Turing," Mar-2012, Stephen Goddard Using mirrors and video feedback, Devasher created seven “mother” creatures (seen in the center of the composition) that were in turn used to spawn related families of biomorphic creatures. This large digital print charts these relationships. In the accompanying video, each creature is 19 projected with a radioactive glow on a black field. Devasher has been consumed with fashioning a universe of biomorphic entities in her prints and large-scale drawings. She calls the work “a warehouse full of impossible monsters,” an idea derived from evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (The Blind Watchmaker). In this work, Devasher dares to imagine a world of possibilities that may or may not exist, providing a genetic sequence through her artistic practice. The light radiating lines seen in the background of Devasher’s print describe a circular rendition of the “three-domain system” that organizes the evolutionary tree of life into three kingdoms on the basis of genetic similarities and the sophistication of cellular structure, as in the rendering below: