CHOICE: Good thoughts, Bad Brains

Some good thoughts have gone into Bad Brains (left), an installation of 350 2ft-by-2ft silver panels at the South London Gallery. Each panel contains a black-and-silver "alien head", mutated from 12 archetypes, themselves mutations from a variety of sources. John Dutton and Peter Snadden, the artists behind Bad Brains, won't be drawn on the precise theme of their work, beyond saying that there "may be an underhand commentary on the influence of technology - which is not necessarily bad". Their he ads, they are keen to point out, are not computer-generated. Their sources include images from science fiction, ranging from The Terminator to the Fifties film Invasion of the Saucer-Men. Having been made by hand, the archetypes were scanned into a computer tobe contorted into different versions of themselves. Essentially organic in origin, the artists call this a "podular", rather than modular, installat ion. The effect is indeed organic. Each alien seems to hover ominously just above the surface of its board, creating the impression for the viewer of being immersed in a sort of gene pool with eyes and teeth. It is refreshing to see artists embrace this particular bit of science. As one peruses the panel-covered walls, there is a sense of death suspended, as aspects of one form are represented in the next. Damien Hirst (exhibiting at the gallery in a few months) reads the entrails of biology to dwell on death with bobbing carcasses; Bad Brains celebrates the evolving continuum of the gene pool.

`Bad Brains' is at the South London Gallery, 65 Peckham Road, SE5 (071-703 6120) from today until 26 Feb