'Hard core, soft bodies' by Stine Deja at Schimmel Projects, Dresden

Hard core, soft bodies is a collection of videos that reimagine the human form. The 3D hybrid beings, constructed of biological organs and technological prosthetics, stand in a literal ‘grey area’ making familiar sounds and subtle movements. There is an undeniable bizarreness to imagining the inner-workings of our biological bodies, but when cleaned up and stripped of the ‘mess’ a digestive tract earns the same elegance as a single unoccupied contact lens. The work serves as a tribute to the intricate and phenomenal natural human body and the possibility for technology to further expand it’s potential. This futuristic re-imagining of bodies draws on one of Deja’s key questions: what does it mean to be human in the age of artificial intelligence and the technological takeover?

For the exhibition at Schimmel Projects - Art Centre Dresden Stine Deja has created a site-specific environment around the pieces. Six tons of gravel had been installed to extract the grey zone narrative into the physical space and minimise the boundaries between the screen and the viewer. A unique ecosystem exists in the gallery: the natural floor makes the environment feel both inside and outside, while the smoke instates an unconscious mystery in the space by drawing on recurring sci-fi tropes. The viewer is forced to feel they have slipped into another reality, where even the view from the windows to the ‘outside world’ is no longer as expected.