In the NuMi collection, Frederik De Wilde explores the ways artists have critiqued scientists' representation of the inanimate (human) form from the Renaissance until the present through the combination of artistic and biomedical imaging techniques.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the physician’s skeleton had achieved iconic status. In the nineteenth century critics condemned anatomy as a ‘dark science.’ Only the physician could penetrate, dissect, and stage performances with the dead body. In medical discourse, the transaction between the physician and cadaver was identified with a metahistorical battle between life and death, health and disease, reason and unreason, light and darkness.

To create the collection De Wilde worked with scientists to reconstruct and interpret medical data (600 radiographic images with a 360 degree rotation). in custom built 3D visualisation software, whilst experimenting with the possibilities made available through medical skills, materials and techniques. CT scans from mice were translated in custom built software into a 3D model generated by a SNAP marching cube algorithm.

The metaphoric transformations of the body represent aesthetic and poetic interpretations of biomedical research and data. The artwork becomes a catalyst for biomedical (un)seeing and (un)knowing.