Tench Cholnoky
Projects
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12.02.22
Concept
As the digital world has taken over more aspects of human life, human bodies and the ways they interact have become mediated by digital processes. Cyborg//HYPERMEAT seeks to explore how digital technologies process and display the human form, and the inherent distortion, objectification, and obfuscation that is embedded in those processes. Through performance, dance, digital portraiture, and other mediums, we are uncovering and reckoning with the digital mediations that take place between our bodies every day.
It moves through both the digital and physical space with ease, shifting forms and functions at will. Its body is no longer a grounding material force; the body is now a contingency.
The digital age has deified The Cyborg, a pure amalgam of flesh and circuits, while simultaneously discounting the intrinsic fleshy power of the body itself.
If The Cyborg is detached from its body, it is because of its inherent modularity. It looks like us, it acts like us, but it is not us.
The Cyborg is capable of a digital plasticity that humans are not.
We cannot turn ourselves cyber without manufacturing HYPERMEAT—the pseudo-digital fleshy creations made in an attempt to chromatize our bodies.
Welcome to our exploration of the inherent distortion, objectification, and obfuscation embedded in the formulas of how digital technologies process and display the human form.
Welcome to Cyborg//HYPERMEAT
My Focus
Cyborg//HYPERMEAT was Pixelmouth’s first show, which meant a lot of it was learning on the fly. Learning how to run a show, how to be an effective organizer, what a curator does, managing a dozen people for the first time, and learning how Pixelmouth was going to function in the future. We tried a lot of new things with this show, and some of it stuck. It was my first time VJing for a long period of time, and at the time I was only using Hydra by O. Jack, a javascript environment built for live coding video. I had started two months prior and was still getting my footing in performing. You can check out some of my old hydra scripts I bookmarked here, here, and here.
Regarding curation, I really had no clue what I was doing. We did our open call and collectively selected artists whose work we thought would look good in the show, and also folks we knew we could work with on something so experimental. Many of the artists ended up spending a few days before the show working in the space, and I was able to puzzle out some of the things they needed my input on as we went along.
Cyborg//HYPERMEAT was a great test of what Pixelmouth was capable of, and in it I found a lot of inspiration moving forward, as well as where my energy was best put. We clarified roles, delegated, and made much more educated plans in future shows.
Documentation
2. Installation by Robin Altman
4. Performance by Storm Hartley & Soft Abilez
3. Installation by Pepi Ng