In 2008, Al and Al: Eternal Youth formed a central part of Liverpool's European Capital of Culture celebrations and our Human Futures programme. The exhibition itself features a new video installation Eternal Youth (2008) that we commissioned and is shown alongside two existing works and a blue screen interactive studio.

UK artists AL and AL make spectacular computer generated videos which radically re-appropriate contemporary pop culture through an inventive use of celebrity icons, live action performance and animation special effects. The artists have been working together since 1997, when they met through a chance encounter in Derek Jarman's garden in Dungeness. This uncovered some remarkable coincidences: their shared three first names, Alan James Edward, and that their fathers had the same name and died on the same date. These and many other intriguing parallels formed the basis of AL and AL's interest in the notion of doubling, which has since broadened to explore the role of technology in creating simulated experiences.

The works in this exhibition, Eternal Youth (2008), Interstellar Stella (2006) and Perpetual Motion in the Land of Milk and Honey (2004) all investigate the power of mediation and popular culture. Composed in stunning computer generated imagery, these works remind us of the promises and perils of technological seduction and our increasing desire to control our identities through media intervention. Through their use of CGI, live performance and animation as well as their direct references to history of art, film and culture, AL and AL are true pioneers in their ability to render the harsh reality of synthetic times and a digital world in flux.

This exhibition is no longer in our building.