'Effective, Defective, Creative' by Yinka Shonibare

Digital artwork, 'effective, defective, creative' by Yinka Shonibare MBE, 2000. Three-phase film featuring ultrasound scans of moving foetuses. The scans are shown in three phases labelled above in sans serif font 'effective', 'defective' and 'creative'. 'Effective' scans are coloured blue, 'defective' ones yellow, and the two mixed together on the final 'creative' phase.

The Science Museum commissioned this digital artwork from Shonibare in 1999. He was invited to respond to any subject in contemporary science which he felt was contentious or worth investigating.

Shonibare chose to collaborate with expectant mothers, using ultrasound scans to question how we value diversity and difference – a subject important to him personally. Shonibare chose the provocative terms ‘effective’, ‘defective’ and ‘creative’ intentionally to challenge their emotional impact.

On the final, ‘creative’ screen, the scans previously labelled ‘effective’ or ‘defective’ are mixed, challenging ideas of ability or disability, suggesting that together these give us a more creative society.

Shonibare hoped to encourage ethical questions about advances in medicine, particularly the increasingly widespread use of technology to identify foetal ‘defects’. This has only become more significant in the years since the artwork was made.