Integral to life and to love, the heart is both a vital bodily organ and the seat of human emotion. Beating more than two and a half billion times in an average lifetime, this quadripartite muscle maintains a physical and metaphorical circulation necessary to the individual and to society. ‘He has a heart of gold’, ‘my heart was in my mouth’, ‘I’m heartbroken’: the way we speak about the heart tells a lot about how we feel about each other. The heart’s importance as a physical organ is reflected in the way we use it as a metaphor for human emotion and interaction. The heart’s health as a physical organ is also indicative of human development: cardio-vascular disease is most prevalent in wealthy societies. Throughout the history of art, the heart has been represented and evoked to express key human concerns. From William Hogarth’s Sigismunda Mourning over the Heart of Guiscardo (1759), John Millais’ Hearts are Trumps (1872), through to Sean Scully’s Heart of Darkness (1992) and Tracey Moffatt’s Heart Attack (1994), the heart has occupied a central place in the history of art.
CARDIAC is a groundbreaking collaboration between microbiology, painting and computer technology, exploring the physiological, aesthetic and social significance of the heart. It focuses initially on the individual cardiac muscle cell, the cardiomyocyte. This cell contracts spontaneously and individually. However, when grouped together under the control of the heart’s pacemaker, each cardiomyocyte beats in tandem with its neighbour making circulation, and life, possible. Through the image, and the presence, of cardiomyocytes the exhibition investigates the aesthetic importance of these cells at a molecular level, then draws back to ask questions about how these cells operate at a social level, engendering social interaction and negotiating relationships between each person and the community in which they live. Our examination of the cardiomyocyte through the exhibition is an opportunity to explore the aesthetic implications of molecular science, and to question the ways in which biology underpins key areas of social interaction. CARDIAC explores the singular elements (cardiomyocytes) that keep each one of us alive, while examining how those elements have come to represent a complex web of cultural interaction that sustains community and communication.

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/7712