ENgrams exhibition at The Warburg Institute, London, WC1 Woven Evolution of Technologies, thermal paper, magnets, dimensions variable, 2026
ENgrams presents works by Slade PhD researchers Mary Yacoob, brother_Sjur and Lucy Helton alongside archival materials from the Warburg Institute.
Each work was made in direct response to diagrams, divinatory images and books from the collections. These materials act here as ENgrams - a term
Aby Warburg used for visual traces stored in memory that reawaken when encountered again. Through this dialogie, the artists carry ideas across
centuries, connecting historical images with contemporary practices.
Helton makes visible the satellite data transmissions that travel through outer space, tracing the vast infrastructure humans
have extended beyond Earth to observe and monitor it. Using a radio-fax machine, she receives these transmissions and prints
them line by line onto strips of thermal paper.
The resulting work forms a physical pattern of information that usually remains unseen - a record of human environmental impact
threading across space and time.
Helton links transmissions to weaving, one of the oldest human technologies. Just as threads are interlaced to create structure, the printed signals interlace onto a pattern of information. Displayed alongside materials from the Warburg Institute Collections in
the nearby wall vitrine, the work draws visual connections between woven forms, suggesting weaving as a fundamental structure
through which meaning emerges.
Woven Evolution of Technolgies was made while on a one year placement at UCL’s Mullard Space
Science Lab (MSSL), Guildford, UK, 2024 /2025. Supported by UCL’s Research Excellence
Scholarship for Cross Disciplinary Training (RXD) Award.
Warburg Institute’s MA in Art History, Curatorship and Renaissance Culture
in partnership with the Slade School of Fine Art Doctoral Programme.