Circles of Focus: The Fall Experiment

Christine Borland and Brody Condon's upcoming project at Stroom Den Haag follows up their 2015 exhibition Circles of Focus at the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow. There they worked jointly with an anatomist and an experimental archaeologist to create a sculptural proposal, made with Neolithic ceramic techniques, for two prospective body donors. 

The artists' current inquiry at Stroom is driven by the need to explore the creation of a legally binding contract for the future enactment of this proposal.

Influenced by re-creations of 18th century physics experiments by a historian of science in Leiden, Borland and Condon have shifted their attention from the Anatomy Theatre to the historical Theater of Physics. In 1722 the mathematician Willem 's Gravesande publicly demonstrated an elegant but controversial experiment where spheres were dropped into clay to measure the 'life force' of a body in motion, disproving a popular Newtonian theory and sparking a debate concerning God's relation to the physical world.

During their residency at Stroom in September 2016, the artists will continue their explorations in an intimate series of participatory demonstrations based on the structure of Gravesande's experiment. These new 'Fall Experiments' will interrogate the potential for the act of mark-making in clay to constitute a legally binding body-donation bequest.