Installation view of Past Skin. Image courtesy of MoMA PS1. Photo by Studio LHOOQ.
Look around you. How many screens do you see? How many of us are living in the virtual realm? Our world is being continually altered, shaped and scripted by technology and our bodies along with it. Social media allows us to curate our identity whilst virtual reality gives us the opportunity to step into another’s body and experience a different perspective. It sounds terrifyingly futuristic, but it’s increasingly the reality of our day to day lives. Using science historian and cyber-feminist Donna Haraway’s provocation “Why should our body end at the skin?”‘, as a stimulus, Past Skin at MoMa PS1 invites six contemporary artists – Cui Jie, Jordan Kasey, Hannah Levy, Abigail Lucien, Jillian Mayer, MSHR, and Madelon Vriesendorp – to explore modern constructions of the body using their chosen mediums. Limbs are detached and refashioned into perverse and sometimes grotesque sculptures, alongside sound and video performances and paintings. It’s an appalling glimpse into how dehumanised our society has become and forces us to seriously consider not only the future effects of technology, but our future as humans.
Millie Walton
Past Skin runs until 10th September 2017 at MoMa PS1, Queens, New York
