The artwork
Inspired by souther Italian sacred art, "Sophi@" is a 60 cm (23 inches) tall Italian doll from the 50s whose half part is filled with microchip fragments from recovery motherboards to represent the in-between process of becoming an android or a cyborg.
I see her as hybrid creature made of biology and information, in its gradual process of dematerialisation. “Sofi@” is a living allegory of augmented/accelerated humanity, a creature of knowledge and power representing our post-biological, post-gender, hyper-connected interplanetary future with the candor of a little girl.
A baby goddess of the upcoming "novacene".
The Story of the artwork
"Once upon a time I was strolling through the center of Naples and I came across the shop window of the Ospedale delle bambole ("Dolls' hospital").
I was struck by the haunting beauty of the dolls and of their gazes, especially I was attracted by the languid eyes of this 50s Italian doll who then became my cyber microchips studded sculture SOFI@, who also accidentally resembled, in the child version, the innovative music artist and trans icon SOPHIE, who died at 34 in 2021.
The idea to create a sort of new post gender, post biological, hyper connected deity of the upcoming "novacene", comes from her.
Music artist SOPHIE somehow embodied for me the model of the individual of the future. Not necessarily the unified androgineus some fear (I don’t), but an individual capable to espress and explore the maximum of oneself.
So, though I oppose ideological non senses and I am prone to address issues with a rational and sincere philosophical standpoint — yet I don’t exactly know what truly lies beneath these cultural wars upon identity politics and queer theories.
For the good and evil they may bring in the short term, they could ultimately drive us to develop an actual augmented (non ideologically intersected) fully integrated interplanetary species where it is the individual per se and its pursue of knowledge, beauty or happiness, to bring value.
Will see. As an artist, I just 3D-printed my vision.
This artwork was firstly presented at my solo show "Sublimine" at Piano Zer0. More info here http://tommasofagioli.com/sublimine-2022/
