CURATORIAL

RELAY was a digital curatorial project initiated by John Reuss in 2023, conceived as a platform for discovering and presenting outstanding digital artists through small, thematically curated exhibitions. METABODIES brought together four artists exploring digital flesh, identity and the increasingly fluid relationship between physical and digital existence.

METABODIES

Exploring Digital Flesh and Identity
RELAY · 2023

“Ungravity Scroll” by Scerbo

Photographic work with non-generative glitch interventions.

Using photographs of the same subject from different angles, Scerbo works with deliberately glitched digital brushes, exploiting bugs in the source code of brush settings he has created himself. From the resulting “holes” in the image, he reconstructs the deconstruction. Influenced by the flow of data that shapes our lives, Scerbo portrays visions that are both fragmented and reassembled by the relentless flood of information.

In this particular piece, we see a female figure in water — so fragmented and distorted that it becomes difficult not only to identify the person, but even to discern the border between subject and surroundings. Everything exists on the same informational level. The work reflects how digital dominance has increasingly disconnected us from the physical world, while material objects lose their power and meaning.

Scerbo’s work confronts us with a flow of data that simultaneously feeds our understanding and clouds our perception, leaving mind and memory similarly fragmented.

“SELF-SURGERY” by Iñigo Bilbao

Human-guided AI-generated digital render.

The title opens a question: Is this self-surgery performed on the physical body, or surgery on the psychological self? What is striking about Bilbao’s work is how the desaturated images give the bodies an almost artificial, chromed appearance while depicting gruesome deformations, decay and injury. We initially accept the image as something aesthetically pleasing, only for its disturbing content to reveal itself upon closer inspection — speaking to the alienation and numbness brought on by the endless stream of information we encounter every day.

For Bilbao, working with AI feels like walking through the sewers of the collective unconscious, searching among the waste for pieces with which to construct his work. The viewer needs something recognisable in the image to connect with, something to hold on to. His aim is to tighten the rope between the recognisable and unrecognisable, the real and fantastic, the beautiful and horrible, as much as possible — to disconcert, disturb and fascinate.

“Life Is Beautiful” by Abhominal

Human-guided AI-generated digital render.

In this piece, Abhominal explores possible future posthuman forms emerging from the convergence of genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. We are confronted with a contorted, lumpy mass of flesh — unmistakably a female nude figure, yet grotesquely stretched and tumorous. She is put on display for us to behold, propped up on impossibly small supports, exhibited rather than hidden away.

Humans have altered the genomes of other species for thousands of years through artificial selection, shaping them to serve our needs. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, science mapped the human genome, opening the way for humanity to begin genetically modifying itself.

To modify nature is our nature. Abhominal raises questions about the future of our species: where does a path of ever-increasing technological intervention lead us, and ultimately, what will it mean for the human condition?

Life is beautiful — but is the future?

“Action” by savka

Photographic / digitally collaged piece.

In Savka’s piece, we are presented with a male figure caught in an upward motion, his body interrupted by rectangular forms — sheets of paper, perhaps, or rudimentary screens. These abstract geometric intersections obstruct the figure and its attempt to reach something ahead and above, suggesting the interruptions that mark us all: the experiences we gain, the events of our lives, the trials we go through. They leave their mark.

Through symbolism and surreal imagery, Savka seeks to convey his sense of the world through a distinctly personal visual language. Smooth lines, geometry, technology and natural forms intersect throughout his work, giving form to experiences that are difficult to express in words or reproduce in the physical world.

Blurring the boundaries between reality and imagination, Savka draws on animistic symbols, mythology and the present to explore the mysterious landscape of the contemporary soul — creating new images of modern gods.