"In a ceaseless journey through means of portraying myself, my essence seems to always be slipping through my fingers…"
In the series “Amateur Gods” I pose the
question of the self-construction of the SELF, opening debates on the body and
human identity, making comments on genetics, technology, and society. In an
autoreferential investigation, I hereby seek to rethink our essence and its
haphazardness, delving into what is it that constructs us as beings, that
ensures our uniqueness in
the midst of a
plurality of existences.
Blurring the boundaries between art
and science, I worked with a sample of my own saliva, which I had analyzed in order to get my full genetic genetic sequencing.
Systematizing my own genetic data, I conceive my own organism as another
platform for information and manipulation, while exploring the self-portrait in
its most intimate dimension. In this way, I reflect on how a simple set of
letters can condense all the information necessary to construct my identity,
conceiving the self as pure information, which can therefore be constructed and
modified with simple data variations and misplacements.
This sort of intimate self-portrait
becomes a multiple and mutable expression. At times, my genetic sequence is
handed over to the audience so that they themselves can officiate as Amateur
Gods in a playful experience that has the power to reimagine my essence. In
other situations, the purely cold and technological realm intersects with the
gesture of handmade calligraphy. Ultimately, this information so susceptible to
modification, and therefore powerful enough to modify my being, is set in
stone.
A synthesized version of the genetic information of each one of my twenty-three pairs of chromosomes is engraved on a different plexiglass piece. “Amateur Gods” is thus constituted by twenty-three components representing my most intimate self. These sculptures have a reminiscence of the interlocking games we played when kids, and make an allegory with the newest discoveries regarding genetic engineering, specifically with the “CRISPR” tool.
