Mental

The theme of invisibility through to materiality has been both an obsession and emergent trajectory of my research over the past decade. Crucially, I have explored this through the potential for innovation found in between the worlds of art and science.

MENTAL is a key example of this way of working. An autobiographical, multimedia artwork, scientifically inspired to examine creativity and emotion through five creative states of mind: refuge, sexuality, self, death and fathoming.

Initial research processes involved 3D modelling of key chemicals expressed in the brain at Pfizer laboratories never done before for an artistic purpose. My science collaborator was Professor John McLachlan (a biologist) from St Andrews University. Together we developed from ‘fashion pure’ to embrace wider inter-disciplinary experimentation: film to textiles, architecture, digital media, fashion, sound, bookmaking and fibre optics. We worked with over 65 collaborators from four other universities and four colleges within the University of the Arts London.

MENTAL comprised five interactive installations each, elucidating a creative state, while providing a mechanism for the audience to impart their own thoughts about themselves, through touch, computer game and the written word.

• http://www.helenstoreyfoundation.org/