February 2022
’Christopher Langton: Bad Biology'
Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne

It is perhaps no coincidence that the graphic representation of the Coronavirus that we have become familiar with through news reporting over the course of the pandemic is startlingly like the strange, globular forms of Christopher Langton’s new installation Bad Biology, 2022. With its orb-like anatomy and tufts of cellular material, COVID-19 and its various mutations would be perfectly at home amongst the strange, and strangely appealing ‘creatures’ that populate Langton’s newly-created world. While based on real-life knowledge and study of the virus, the ‘image’ that we are now overly familiar with and recognise as Coronavirus also shares the 1950s Pop sci-fi sensibility of Langton’s brightly hued asteroids and mutant forms, along with the way in which their seemingly organic or ‘natural’ components manifest in terrifyingly ‘unnatural’ and unknown lifeforms. Read