Technoflesh

Babel visningsrom for kunst/ Meta.Morf biennale, Trondheim 2024

Technoflesh is a metaphysical sci-fi experience by Unnur Andrea Einarsdottir and Panja Göbel. Exploring the blurred and hybrid relationship between our bodily reality and our digital counterparts, the artists are staging a participatory cult-like performance powered by the audience’s brain data. 

In an imagined sci-fi bio lab setting, the audience is invited to reflect on the concept of human physicality and how avatars could be embedded in body remnants in a hyper-digitized future.

Inspired by and building upon Stelarc’s ideology around the ‘techno body,’ the artists position an apocalyptic artwork around the accelerationist future of nanotechnologies. The project is a reflection on the consequences of Stelarc’s staged body hybridization during a time of hyper-digitization: the pandemic, live-streamed wars, and the metaverse becoming a capitalized virtual destination. 

Unpacking what it could mean to have a log for the remains of a physical body within the digital world, the artists are staging the idea of future flesh being able to hold a history of its digital avatars. Metaverse gatekeepers explore the digital ghosts tied to diverse bodily remnants and ask the audience to engage in a hunger games like ritual to keep their avatars alive. A brain headset will be fitted on the participant, feeding their personal brain data into an augmented reality app that maps the avatar on their face. Left at the mercy of the brain-computer interface, the participant is forced to navigate the fragile hybrid place that connects them to their virtual replicant. 

The viewer has to navigate the complex, multi-layered issues of a technologized future where a person’s history and dreams can be called up and embodied by others. Dreams and surveillance sit side by side, there is no clear message.