Meta-Mahala

Year:
2023

Medium:
Sculptural Installation: Metal Pipes, Concrete, Photography, Generative AI, CGI, Textile Print

Exhibition History:
2023 – ThisTime/NextTime – Group Show, New Wight Gallery, Los Angeles, US

Description:

Mixed-media installation that investigates the relationship between computer-generated images and the social periphery. In the Romanian language, a mahala is a neighborhood located at the periphery of a city, associated with precarity and poor living conditions. The prefix meta- refers to the relationship of this social territory to ideas around digital utopias.

The image printed on the textile is created using a blend of photography, CGI, and generative AI, materializing the process by which computer-generated images are increasingly taking over photography’s role in representing reality.

Photo Credits:
Paloma Dooley

The physical structure of the installation symbolizes a carpet cleaning bar, a common utilitarian object situated between block buildings in Eastern Europe. It is an iconic object because, beyond its utilitarian role, it has historically functioned as a communal space where diverse social groups would gather and socialize.

The central figure in the textile print, Abel, represents myself as an Eastern European man. He is created from a 3D scan of my face transposed on a metahuman, and further blends methods of visual representation from photography, to CGI and generative AI.