Universals I

The work is based on various patent diagrams about human behaviour, psychology and physiology. These patents belong to various digital companies, that are trying to define what is “human” through certain characteristics like emotion, physiological or chemical state, that could be registered, described and eventually exploited somehow. The images are processed digitally first and altered physically afterwards. The partially controlled, partially random process is a result of the artist’s actions, image generation by content-aware algorithms, and physical substances like microorganisms in saliva, that are in contact with the energy source – the food. Some images are still living and not yet „ready”. They will change during the display and afterwards. When the image doesn’t change anymore, then microorganisms have depleted all available energy and died, leaving a visual trace. The work obscures the clearly defined “human” and transforms the defined basics into the state, where the clear distinction between “human” and everything else becomes unrecognisable.