During the last 8 months or so, I have been working on a new book with co-editor Yiannis Colakides. It’s called Frankenstein Reanimated: Conversations with Artists in Dystopian Times.
However, before compiling the materials for this book I had already been in deep research, discovering numerous: emotional, historical, social, psychological, technological, feminist, and political contexts, which influenced Mary Shelley’s ideas. Reading these materials has been a joy and immensely valuable, offering much knowledge and insight. Shelley’s classic, Gothic horror and science fiction novel, has inspired millions since it was written over 200 years ago in 1816, and its first anonymously published release, in London in 1818.
Out of this research arrived the foundations for three critically acclaimed exhibitions: Monsters of the Machine: Frankenstein in the 21st Century, at LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Gijón, Spain, 2016; Children of Prometheus, at Furtherfield Gallery, London, UK, 2017; and, Children of Prometheus, at the NeMe Arts Centre, Limassol, Cyprus, 2019. These exhibitions revisited Mary Shelley’s ideas on Frankenstein and what they look like through today’s artists’ eyes, in the 21st Century.
And, even though the work in these exhibitions and in the upcoming book, express concerns in respect of contemporary issues around scientific imagining and technologies, that have unintended and dramatic consequences for the world.
I just wanted to share these books with you, because even though many of them were written years ago, they still matter and we still have a hell of a lot to learn from them – in fact, more than ever now.
