Laura Beloff

Filmed in one continuous take, 16 minutes in a petri dish follows minuscule droplets as they settle into strangely orderly patterns, spaced with a symmetry that seems almost deliberate. ‘What kind of forces guide them into such orderly patterns?’ Beloff asks. The video shows a single continuous experiment, which she describes as ‘a kind of artificial evolution, or an ongoing microperformance.’ It belongs to more than a decade of experiments with liquids and systems, most of which have never been exhibited: works that have evolved slowly, seeking their form, as the artist matured alongside them. Inspired at first by research into protocells and biotechnology, Beloff set out to go beyond the usual focus of scientific experiments, seeing in these liquid systems ‘a realm of controlled unpredictability that borders on magical rather than strictly scientific.’ Today, she notes, they also resonate with an unstable and unpredictable world. Change and movement, whether of people, organisms, data or droplets, remain a thread running through her work.