Inspired by technology and consumer society, Sean Raspet’s work extends beyond the sphere of art to intervene in the fields of science, food production, and finance. A number of his projects focus on how systems mutate and change material form, resulting in an approach to abstraction that involves working with intangible elements such as chemical compounds, currency valuation and financialization, legal administration, and data processing. Raspet became a self-taught chemist in order to produce compounds such as artificial flavors and fragrance formulations, cleaning products, new food prototypes, and a synthetic DNA tracking gel among others. His works do not merely circulate within the context of the exhibition space, but instead are “metabolized” both inside and outside of the art context—and sometimes quite literally within the human body.
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