Credit: GORNEY, BRAVIN & LEE

How far can science and technology push the frontiers of human sporting achievement? This question occupied New York artist Alexis Rockman during his year-long residency at Camden Arts Centre in London, which has just ended.

The studies shown here for his work in progress, Future Olympics, show the fruits of his long discussions with physiologists and molecular biologists in London and Oxford. They display his signature motif: the grafting together of the artificial and the organic, which has been a hallmark of much of his earlier work.

This style was evident in Rockman's famous image The Farm, which led to his portrayal as a harbinger of the dangers of genetic engineering. He confesses that his view of science is “confused”, believing that science may have caused problems but that it will also help to solve them.

Rockman will take part in 'Superhumans and Superstitions: The Contested Identity of the Human Body', a public panel discussion to be held at the Royal Institution in London on 8 May.

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