Liminal Self Matter (2021)
As technologies develop, the possibilities of aesthetic transformations related to our bodies and identities increase. These possibilities can occur through permanent changes (such as plastic surgeries, implants, tattoos), non-permanent changes (such as clothes, accessories, hair dyes), and there are the simulations that take place in the virtual space of the digital universe (such as avatars). In the virtual space, the possibility's speed and dynamism of visual changes can be extreme and it matches with the pace of the contemporary culture, the desire for the “new”, in the midst of the digital culture. Lucia Santaella (brazilian media theorist) once stated that, although the desire for changing our bodies is incessant we won’t be able to transform our physical bodies completely, even with blood transfusions and surgeries, no matter how many times we slice our DNA’s, it will always be the same in some aspect. From another point of view, the digital presents a wide space to experience simulations of radical transformative processes. Even though, most part of the visuals we see in digital avatars highlights exacerbated shapes of standard human beauty or the images of hybrids that permeate the science fiction or terror imagery, such as the animal-human, machine-human, human-monster or human-dragon figures. We find less images of human-hybrids with trivial objects or “non-intelligent” materials, elements that are considered disposable in consumer culture. “Liminal Self Matter” is a series of self-portraits (3D scanned and turned into 3D animation) that presents transitions of human figures with other (less ambitious) qualities of objects or materials that can be understood as symbols of extractivism in the neoliberal daily-life. As we consume the qualities of these items they also become part of what constitutes us, our culture and who we are.
* We sent the project to festivals but with a second proposal: to turn the 3D animations into physical objects with 3D printing three frames of the video. The 3D objects would compose three mockups and they would be sequentially enlightened with an electronic microcontroller in order to create a effect similar to a moving image.
