"In our palliative society, pain is silenced before it could become a story." Byung-Chul Han
Pain is real. Digitalisation is anaesthesia.
This series is an extended + expanded project evolved from the D.B. 🥀 | THƏ L∆B ØF ∆NØM∆LIƏS.
In the laboratories of our digital era, we witness the metamorphosis of the human species. A ferment. A transformation. Synthetic flesh. Apparent bodies. Inert codes. A new aesthetic and ethos where artificial intelligence leads the vanguard of a delusional revolution.
We find ourselves on the brink of a new world’s short circuit. Ultra-sophisticated algorithms mimic, emulate, and influence reality. Profiles take shape on screens within the patterns. Social media serves as a testing ground. Fabricated existences are staged to make a strong impact alongside the true essence of the skin we inhabit. Digital images become the epidermis upon which we tattoo our new identity. Amidst pixels, upon bones. Programmed, audacious, mundane, sequenced, stitched, inflated, sculpted, engraved, assembled, filtered, shared—without remorse and free from the physical limits of our birth, yet irreversibly dependent on formulas.
The body we wear is the image we desire. Our imperfect nature is not something we possess, and the obsessive pursuit of perfection embodies its denial. We are both perpetrators and victims of our flesh:
corporal colonisation, and cerebral annihilation.
Body = Social Relationship
Body = Image
Body = Capital
Body = Spectacle
This artistic project becomes a political act in this social context. Disorder. Contamination. Artistic creation. Poetic revolt. A manifesto of rebellion. A conflict against the loss of control over one’s own body. An exaggeration of everything imperfect: diseases, metamorphoses, alterations, marks on the skin. Since identity is made of images, this project is an explosion. The images of bodies explode. Bodies that seem alive, silent, screaming, breathing, and moaning. Flesh and blood, wounds and scars, muscles and bones, intestines and skin, amniotic fluid and sweat. Silences and noise. A testimony of inclusivity, an exposure of diversity. Every wound, cut, and fragment of flesh is a transition from representation to reality in the digital ritual, where the viewer is both victim and executioner. A transgression of social taboos against toxic standards in a society founded on physical models upon which identity is traditionally conceived, standardised, granted, and authorised. A generative action, deliberately extreme. Embarrassment, surprise, disgust, excitement. In this gallery of images, bodies and faces are the absolute language. A condemnation not only of the commodification of art but also of the very essence of our humanity, against industries that would turn our bodies into mere objects, our souls into merchandise. Shreds of bodies become traces of presence, of silenced stories, bitten words, humiliated existences, abused bodies, used, consumed.
Here, in the era of social media and life projected on screens, apparent body art takes shape. It is born from the emotional impact of existing in two realms simultaneously, where our bodies become the battleground for our ideals—the “bristling hairs” of rebellion against a society that tries to force us into bodies that don’t belong to us and to modify us from childhood to be accepted.
Just for a moment, try to perceive beauty beyond commodified perfection. Life through a new lens—one that values the grandeur of bodily existence in all its forms. Look at the intensity of these faces. Can you see the light filtering through every scar and crevice? Follow the movements of these bodies. Pause to listen to the sounds—the whispers, moans, and grunts—that speak a language deeper than words. And as you do, savour, smell, and touch your skin, hold the flesh deeply. Feel the warmth of life in a way that no technology can replicate.
These images are a declaration of freedom, a reclaiming of the apparent body as a site of resistance for asserting the real body in all its varied imperfections.
The videos part of this project are curated in a playlist on CIFRA.
