In recent years, we have grown fond of publishing our image. A constructed image of what we want to show of ourselves, of our life. This way, we create a character that we publish, exhibit, or sell, sometimes even in search of love. Some fall into the trap of believing that character is real, that it is them.
In this psychological and spiritual dystopia, seeing is more difficult. We project a character that was born out of social media conventions. Conventions that are generated and evolve globally. Driven by a standardized idea of “happiness” and, often, directed by advertisers and “influencers”. To what extent do we choose it?
The bones in the images, while still being mine, are at the same time “the same” or hardly recognizable among those of other humans. I traverse the skin to make myself indistinguishable, to make myself one with others. On the inside, I look more like you.
The images come from real medical scans requested by health professionals during an ailment or a follow-up. With this I wanted to use physical pain as a reflection of the spiritual pain that drives society to launch itself into the construction of an image of almost obligatory happiness that uses any means to construct and direct typified and domesticated behavior. A typification as savage as that of some religion that does not allow women to vote, but much more subtle. It does not prohibit behaviors, but it steers them. That way you don’t even dream of doing something different because you’ve “chosen” it yourself.
All this madness blinds us. It distances us from ourselves. A society that manages to force its members to feel the need to create, publish and share an image of themselves that adheres to some standard, is the most polarized and stereotyped society. It’s not freedom.
If we still wanted to know who we are, we would just have to look into our eyes in a mirror and enter into our soul. From there we could get that feeling of “on the inside I look more like you”.
To follow this idea, the piece reflects the approaching viewers, simulating a mirror that mixes the visitor with my bones, conforming to the dual nature of mirrors. It reflects the truth and highlights the lies depending on the intention of the gaze. It can be used as an allegory such as: you and I are one; your eyes can be in my heart; you can look yourself in the eye and recognize yourself; or it can simply be understood as a computer gadget. It’s all true at once. Thus, we are reminded that neither the image, nor the mirror (nor the camera) help us on our path, only our intention can disperse the noise.
The piece allows the viewer to take a #Selfie_v2 souvenir. The video stream can be captured by the installation and downloaded by the visitor.
The sculpture and all the pieces are available as NFTs at OpenSea.
Technical data
Interactive video sculpture. 1.1 m x 1.1 m x 60 cm.
MRIs of feet and knees. Kidney ultrasounds. X-rays of the chest, jaw and teeth. From 2012 up to 2021.
Videos in animated GIF format. JPG images.
The piece consists of 6 RasperriPis. Five of them are model 3 with a 3.5″ screen and a transparent housing. These screens are located around the chest, coming out of a “spine”. The transparent case allows you to see the inside of the mini computers. The chest consists of a model 4 Pi with a 24″ monitor and a webcam.
Source code @ github.
Interesting facts
The careful observer will notice that the videos of the MRIs “jerk”. The sequences of images appear to be “poorly made”. The scan visualization software, when exporting the video format, ordered the frames as 0, 1, 10, 11, 2, 3. A fairly common computer error. When I saw it, I thought it would be very interesting to relate #Selfie_v2 to God Is in the Bugs.
