Corpo Estranho 2012

Editor: Hifa Cybe's "Corpo Estranho" from 2012 uses mixed media, including photography, to present a series of portraits in a strangely clinical way. The body, rendered in white, contrasts with the sharp red. It feels unsettling. What do you make of this work? Curator: The use of mixed media is crucial here. Photography, often seen as objective, is manipulated with other materials to create something artificial, something consciously constructed. Consider the body as a raw material, then reworked, almost manufactured, echoing debates around body modification and cosmetic surgery within consumer culture. How does the clinical whiteness of the figures and backdrop impact your interpretation? Editor: It's almost like a factory setting, devoid of emotion except for the red which reads like a defect. It is the opposite of the natural body... like mass produced. Curator: Exactly. Think about the labour involved. What sort of processes must the artist go through to create these tableaus? The white paint as both homogenizing the body into a thing, whilst paradoxically making the medium and material making of the piece ever present to the audience's eye. Is it highlighting the alienating effects of production in consumer culture? Editor: It definitely adds another layer, making me think about not just the image but how it came to be. I’m not sure I would have thought about it like that. Curator: Reflecting on materiality makes us confront how objects come into being, and how that labour shapes both the artwork and our understanding of it. We are consumers, after all, complicit in those systems. Editor: So by focusing on the materials, and the method, we can see that the piece asks us to consider the social and historical elements in the modern understanding of the body? Curator: Precisely. A successful piece makes you see everything.