I

You can follow r.a.rats on Instagram here

We were invited to take part in this year’s RA Summer Exhibition, responding to the theme of Dialogues, and created “I ”, a new work for the show.

The world is in a state of corporeal flux. As artificial intelligence accelerates and the boundaries of human consciousness strain against the limitations of the mortal biological body, the singularity is no longer the distant fantasy of science fiction. In this liminal state, we ask: when the tool becomes the tool maker, will it obediently serve us, keep us as a pet, or blithely disregard us like a chrysalis ?

“I” presents 101 preserved white rats — bodies removed, each lined with 24-carat gold. Across cultures, the rat is loaded with symbolism — survivor, outsider, scapegoat. The white rat, specifically, evokes the sacrificial body of the laboratory subject. Arranged in a circle close to the floor, they stand on their hind legs, gazing upward in silent unison. They do not look at each other, but stare back at us the viewer with quiet indictment.

We imagine the RA rats as totemic artefacts from a lost civilisation, perhaps a warning: to stay cautious and protect ourselves from the post-humanist experiment, that we abandon the body at our peril.