Hi, my name is Catherine, and I am a first-year analytical chemistry student in TU Dublin. My exhibition this year is a digital artwork inspired by the chapter ‘The Placebo Effect’ from the book ‘Bad Science’ by Ben Goldacre.

It is in digital form as digital artwork is one of my better forms of art. I am interested in art as well as science, so for this exhibition, I decided to combine the two subjects into one artwork. The chapter ‘The Placebo Effect’ in ‘Bad Science’ describes how the placebo effect works in drug trials.

My drawing is based on the placebo effect of an experiment that took place in 1972 run by Blackwell. Students were given one of the two sugar pills, which were either pink and blue, and were told they were either a stimulant or a sedative – but not which was which. In the end results, the students who took the pink pill were shown to have maintained concentration better than those who took the blue pill. As there was no chemical differences in the pills as they both contained the same substance – sugar – the result is due to the psychological beliefs associated with the different colours; pink is a brighter colour, hence it grabbing attention more while blue is associated with being cool and relaxing.