A Portrait of the Artist as a Transhumanist (PAT)

A Portrait of an Artist as a Transhumanist (PAT)
2.4m x 2.2 diameter.

Portrait of an Artist as a Transhumanist (PAT) is a new experimental sculpture that exists In Real Life and here as a digital model. A vision of becoming cyborg is manifested darkly – where I tested out combinations of materials and processes in new modular arrangements, such as hand crafted aluminium laminated bamboo and plastic pipe combined with fabricated aluminium and white neon tubes. The resulting sculptural entity was then rendered as a digital object by Tadhg Ó Cuirrín with a soundtrack to be supplied by composer Tadhg Kinsella.

PAT develops elements from my sculptural practice exploring what it means to be human becoming machine, both philosophically in a Guattarian sense, and in transhuman biomorphic sense, where human subjectivity is no longer recognisable as something based in meat, but as a form that has transitioned out of biology and can now exist in a ‘metaverse’ run on any substrate with computational capacity.

The Research Basis/Context of this work stems from firsthand research, where I travelled, conducted, interviews and recorded videos at The Alcor Life Extension Foundation, Arizona, USA - a leading exponent of the international Transhumanism movement that specialise in cryonics.

PAT explores the proposition that ‘the body’ of the artist has the potential, in the future, to be the ultimate artform. Mind Emulated consciousness existing as data and algorithms frees the personal entity from existing in flesh, opening up the potential for any plastic form to be used as a substrate to run the mind identity. The body becomes the ultimate expression of the creative act or the pinnacle of nihilist gesture.

Original concept and sculpture by Mark Cullen
3D Modelling by Tadhg Ó Cuirrín. 2022
Music by Tadhg Kinsella.