“Rendered Skin” was a project developed by Maria Leonidou as part of her residency at Thinker Maker Space.

Maria Leonidou playfully challenges the boundaries between digital and physical identities, and how those identities are shaped and defined by new technologies. The works whisper posthumanist queries; about the nature of the self, the human vs the non-human and the machine, and allow us to dive into an uncanny world; distinctions merge and give birth to a new view of what it means ‘to be’, or ‘not to be’, in these ambiguous states that exist among the material and the virtual.

The very form of the works is hybrid: fabrics reminiscent of flags hanging from metal structures, but instead of signifying a nation, they signify the transformation of Leonidou’s digital works into a tactile, transparent material that has a body. On the screen, the 3D design recalls once again a digital body, which is almost liquid, ever-moving, suggesting the potential for transformation. A spine and its fluids- a spine symbolic of the core of the human existence where all nerves pass by and give instructions for movement and transmit feelings- how would our digital spines look like in a post-material world? Structures fill the space, provoking humans to question their intended nature, because maybe there isn’t one.

 

Text Credit: Ioulita Toumazi