Grace Woodcock selects 'Mind of my Mind' by Octavia Butler. Published in 1977, it details the development of a new species of telepaths led by Mary, a mixed-race young woman raised in poverty. In our conversation, we discuss what distinguishes Octavia Butler as a unique sci-fi voice as we focus on Grace's debut London solo exhibition GUT-BRAIN at Castor, exploring the ideas behind her research-led practice around the body, mind, tech, science and alternative medicine.

0:00-0:20 Summary of the book 'Mind of my Mind', wondering how to make the book into a movie, afro-futurism, what it might be like to be in someone else's mind, hybridity, blue-blackness, meaning through action, transcending racial delineation, transracial, breeding programme elitism, shapeshifting gender and race, jealousy of the next generation.

20:00-45:00 Grace's art practice, retro futurism, the current dystopian edge, pills for sex, pushing the limits of what it is to be human, NASA spaceship design, how sliding doors came about, shaping of sculptures around the body, memories in objects wrt Japanese Shinto, hidden materials, potential medicinal elements, gut as the original brain, the fate of the sea urchin brain, multiples, subconscious, conversation pits, the gut as a surveillance system for the body

45:00-55:00 other stuff about Grace, from her influences to the books she's reading now!

GRACE WOODCOCK

gracewoodcock.com

castor.gallery

BOOKS

Aldous Huxley 'Brave New World' by 1932

Jonathan Crary '24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep' 2013

Mark Fisher 'Capitalist Realism' 2009

Octavia E Butler 'The Patternist Series' 1976-1980, 'The Parable Series' 1993-1998, 'Bloodchild & Other Stories' 1995

Phillip K Dick 'The Man in the High Castle' 1962

Svetlanda Boym 'The Future of Nostalgia' 2001

Tibor Fischer 'The Collector Collector' 1997

FILMS & SERIES

'Barbarella' 1968

'Forbidden Planet' 1956

'Gattaca' 1997

'Star Treck' 1966-1969

'The Devil Girl from Mars' 1954

'The Jetsons' 1962-63

'The Man in the High Castle' 2015-2019

'The Truman Show' 1998

ARTISTS & THINKERS

Alison Wilding

Anicka Yi

Diane Simpson

Ernesto Neto

Glenn Ligon

Hannah Levy 

Ittah Yoda

Keith Piper - BLK Art Group

Pakui Hardware

Paloma Proudfoot

Rafal Zajko

Saelia Aparicio

Wilhelm Reich - Orgone Theory