Information to help you plan and prepare for your visit.
Introduction to Genetic Automata
![The imposing white edifice of a neoclassical 1930s building. Wellcome Collection building, Euston Road, London, UK.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/0399ce54-c80b-4524-9831-03bf08634817_2.+The+exhibition+is+at+Wellcome+Collection+copy.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
The exhibition is at Wellcome Collection.
![The entrance to an exhibition called Genetic Automata in a modern white-walled interior space with wooden floors and curved glass balustrade.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/854139bc-3034-4e6b-9e37-ac75505fdc71_GA+exhibition.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
Genetic Automata exhibition is in two of our galleries on level 1.
About the exhibition:
![](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/28100aba-724a-48d5-8789-48a66383e267_exhibition+layout+webcopy.jpg?w=312&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
This is a map of the exhibition showing the five different rooms.
Lobby
![A video screen with two men sat side by side hangs on a black painted wall with two headphones hanging on the wall beneath the screen. A long bench is placed immediately infront of the screen.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/08d31eb2-6900-4d49-9f7f-de8b391c3eba_Aritsts+interview.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
Larry Achiampong and David Blandy are artists and friends. They make work about how they are treated differently and why that might be.
There is a 10-minute interview with the artists shown on a screen with headphones.
![A display case in a museum exhibtion with a sloped blue top showing books, films and videogames.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/495012ce-e47b-41d8-906c-40ddb53ae4f4_Display+case.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
There is a display case showing some of the films, books and videogames Larry and David are influenced by. Soft electronic music plays out loud from below the display case.
Room 1: Legacies of Eugenics
![Box of 16 glass eyes of different shades used as an eye colour guage.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/e4f09254-c11f-42af-b180-ee00e3d80629_Eyes+box.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
In this room there are racist objects that were used to categorise people.
![Wooden calibration device used to measure head size and other parts of the body.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/59f35bca-8a50-4057-819c-b0446db27e5d_Measuring+device.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
They include instruments which were used to measure and count people.
![Four whie plaster head busts of men arranged in a row in a glass display cabinet.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/f497f357-017f-42f7-a704-192b867d2382_Plaster+heads.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
They were owned by Francis Galton and Karl Pearson, who worked at University College London in the early 1900s.
![Six head and shoulder photographs of 3 different people showign them facing the camera and in side profile.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/483cc1eb-b873-4a9b-b8cf-fa97df32edd2_Photgraphs.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
They were used to discriminate against people based on how they looked.
Room 2: _GOD_MODE_
![A film plays on a large screen taking up most of the wall in a darkened room. Five long benches are arranged in two rows facing the screen for viewing.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/11ba3b6f-4a17-4d4f-9c66-64c72a9e6c7a_Film+room.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
'_GOD_MODE_' is a film is about eugenics and how it is still present today. The film is 12 minutes long.
![A very enlarged secton of a human fingerprint showing whorls and broken lines making up the pattern,](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/7d15fc4c-56f5-4248-988c-4ab6e3c8cc60_Fingerprint.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
The film starts with a close up of Francis Galton’s fingerprints.
![A long room filled with two rows of computer processing equipment in the form of rectangular stacks to overhead cables. A corridor extends between the two stacks of computers.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/8216d6a0-dd70-4afa-860f-a40d2b68c6dd_Stacks.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
The first half of the film takes place in the real world.
![A huge black spider with round boddy and long spindly legs rest, face down against a sandstone wall covered in Egyptian hieroglyphs.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/b33aae6c-4293-4b40-b7b3-81997044b583_Spider.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
The second half of the film is computer generated.
Room 3: A Lament for Power
![A large video screen fills most of a wall in a darkened space. In front of the screen are three long benches in two rows, ready for viewing.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/480afd7e-d2d5-4fd4-a502-53b378efe47f_Film+room2.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
'A Lament for Power' is about the ethics of using people’s DNA without their permission. The film is 13 minutes long.
![A bleak rural landscape contains a rickety wooken house with two bare trees on either side. In front of the house is a large black disc-shaped object, with a fold in the centre.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/efa5916c-eeb6-4633-b349-839e6b7f1047_Black+cell.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
The film is made in videogame software.
![In a bleak urban background four men stand staring agressively at the viewer, one has a large wooden plank in his hand.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/f0ed9f07-4946-4eb4-bf40-8e5d998d3e90_Resident+Evil.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
It is inspired by the videogame 'Resident Evil 5', which features zombies
![In a modern city background with tall steel and concrete buildings an huge black domed form fills half the image](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/64262e4d-3701-42fd-81bd-17bb2e63e084_Cityscape.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
A large black cell moves across different landscapes. The screen goes entirely black for the last minute of the film.
Room 4: Dust to Data
'Dust to Data' is about how archaeology has been used to make up racist stories about human history. The film is 15 minutes long.
![A large video screen fills up the whole wall of a room with sloping walls and a cloth ceiling. In front of the screen are two long benches for viewing.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/e92d00ef-98bf-4929-8b01-97f170c2fe54_Film+room3.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
The room has a fabric ceiling.
![Archaeological remains of three different hominid skulls, suggesting three stages of human evolution, arranged in a row against a black background.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/1d7d6d08-543a-47a0-bd4d-368d53ed6d69_Skulls.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
The film shows ancient skulls found in archaeological digs.
![A hominid skull lies half buried in a desert landscape. Behind it is a white pyramid shaped object](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/0b719a76-bd24-4f29-978d-ac5a1940ebe5_Skull+on+ground.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
The film merges objects from the real world with landscapes from videogames.
Room 5: A Terrible Fiction
'A Terrible Fiction' is about how scientists have ordered and classified nature, including people. The film is 11 minutes long.
![A large video screen fills most of the wall in a darkened room. Inf ront of the screen is a single bench for viewing,](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/a10199a3-7117-47e8-a789-4610d7994ca6_Film+room+4.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
There is an additional exit to the exhibition in this space, you could leave this way, or go back through the gallery to the main exit.
![A dead, preserved small bird with blue feathers, a yellow underbelly and pointed beak lies on a white surface. A label is attached to its leg with string.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/4131cd29-5f73-4fdb-90b7-77a4a8c3f75c_Finch.jpg?w=504&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
The film includes footage of stuffed birds.
![An extreme close up of the surface of human skin, showing the uneven surface and tiny hairs.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/9ba0af0f-f34b-4321-8d23-a56c00630fb1_Skin.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
The film has close ups of the artists’ skin and eyes.
Exhibition accessibility
![](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/e6c3f129-b900-453c-ad84-8651e9a9f5b2_AccessibleGuides-webicon.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
There are different accessible guides that are available at the start of the exhibition.
The guides are:
![](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/f07010ac-82ab-4005-aa3a-68238fc1132c_Digital+Guide.jpg?w=760&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
Digital guide
The digital guide has audio described and British Sign Language tours of the exhibition.
![](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/1decae9b-db63-4863-ae43-4539815f528f_QRcodes-webicon.jpg?w=760&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
You can watch or listen by scanning QR codes with a smart phone.
![](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/a9fc7bbf-1650-4957-a983-d279c8eeb2b4_Handset-webicon.jpg?w=760&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
Or you can listen to AD by picking up a touch button handset and pressing the number of the audio stop.
![A young woman with shoulder-length brown hair is smiling and looking straight at the viewer. She is dressed in black with a Wellcome Collection logo on her t-shirt.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/61720e20-44c3-49c6-b745-298a0c8d6c4f_VEA.jpg?w=818&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
Please ask a member of gallery staff for help with digital guides.
![](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/89d8c198-c876-4dda-b802-871684a7cd22_TextTranscript-webicon.jpg?w=760&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
Text transcripts of audio-only content are also available in the gallery.