ARTIFICIAL BODIES
The installations explore the correlation between the biological and synthetic worlds, addressing themes of materiality and corporeality. Rapid technological advancements increasingly mimic and interfere with living bodies and other organic forms. This expands many scientific concepts and enhances our understanding of natural mechanisms to improve human life. However, the direction of these developments and their consequences remain open to debate.
Artificial membranes mimic living tissues or fragments of living bodies, resembling specimens displayed in a natural history museum (PAST). In traditional specimens, formalin stops all decomposition processes of organic bodies. Here, however, there is a clear inversion of the constituent materials, which defines the expression of the entire installation.
Water, typically considered essential for life, serves as the medium in which the artificial materials float, undergo transformations, and, in a sense, come to life (FUTURE). The installation consists of a dozen glass vessels of various sizes, each filled with water and containing synthetic membranes that alter their structure and color upon interaction with the liquid. Additionally, specially designed and directed lighting enhances the transparency of the membranes, reinforcing the laboratory-like character of the work.
Genetic interference is becoming the foundation of many innovations, and it is not difficult to predict that it will dominate in the future. As a result, distinguishing between the body and technology will become increasingly challenging, directly impacting definitions of human identity. One may get the impression that current technological trends involve endowing human bodies with artificial attributes, gradually displacing natural biological characteristics, aligning with transhumanist ideas.
pieces of dried membranes
According to transhumanist thought, the body is merely a transitional stage that may eventually be replaced by synthetic analogs, eliminating issues related to biological limitations such as aging and death, while also enabling faster data exchange and improved communication. In this vision, fundamental human traits—such as gender and physiology—could ultimately disappear.
The contents of the vessels mimic elements with corporeal qualities, viscera and all manner of organicity, but still remain strongly abstract and uniformity. The close analogy to living tissues, thanks to the organic anatomicality, while the lack of a defined phantom reminding us of the one from reality, arouses curiosity and intrigues. The landscape formed in an watery environment, additionally illuminated, becomes attractive and mesmerizing. It seems both close, familiar and very distant, strange and frightening.
I am alluding here to the feelings we have when we spin a picture of the future. Some scientists’ visions are as repulsive as they are appealing and exciting. The future appears to us as being produced in a laboratory, in glass vessels, test tubes, where modifications are made that we may soon see. The installation is also a taming of artificial materials, they become more natural to us, displacing organic ones.
Each following dry layer reacts to wetting, which makes it wrinkle or crack like a skin. In addition, I mold them into appropriate shapes and emphasize their structure. I also use the properties of the fluid as a carrier for the pigment, which, following the cracks and hollows, creates a network that imitates veins, neurons or wrinkles. At this stage, artificial membranes become an image of what is inside and outside at the same time.
Artificial material acquires bodily features and maintains anthropomorphic qualities such as plasticity and instability, sensitivity to water and temperature.
Placing artificial membranes in vessels with water allows for free shaping, giving them spaciousness. The overall visual impact of the installation is completed by lighting, which emphasizes the transparency of the contents of the vessels.
