La infinita is an animation of a creature guarding its egg. The animated head began as a self-portrait scanned and sculpted in 3D. In a second instance, a facial capture was made to record different human gestures. The concept that surrounds this piece is the idea of how metamorphosis is connected to technology, We understand that life is always the regeneration of the non-living, as a loop between one realm and the other// One stage and the other. At the same time, this force allows every living being to unfold into multiple forms simultaneously, becoming a plurality of forms. A well-known stage of metamorphosis is maternity. If we compare the morphology of a being in its embryonic state and in its adult stage we could think that they are two different species. Thus, metamorphosis for an organism implies that within the same life line, it will end up going through multiple experiences. This is how a being has the capacity to contain diverse forms over the course of their existence. In this same way, human life unfolds upon its imagination to create technologies that allows it to expand and become something else that is in turn part of itself. Techniques, procedures and designs are refined to exist in a different place, with a digital body embodying an avatar. Here metamorphosis would be the engine that would allow two incompatible bodies to belong to the same individual. In this case, the nature of technology allows the generation of non-living beings animated by living beings. Here we can see a metamorphosis from a biological entity with tangible matter to a digitally animated non-living entity. One of the most widespread techniques to create this type of simulations in recent times is motion capture. This technique allows through the sensing of the body, to give a human gesture to a machinic entity, in the act of making a metamorphosis where technology allows us to simulate another life without leaving our form. Unlike biological creatures, these beings only exist on the virtual plane, but they allow us to test morphologies other than our own, conveyed by our body. Something that cannot be ignored is that we know that the capture of data is widely used for control. Refined machines feed artificial intelligence algorithms. All capturable data is food for datasets/Machine Learning. In this context, I ask myself: What does poetry say about facial capture? With a slightly gentle and slightly severe look,this creature is presented in a maternal scene almost reminiscent of a religious nativity space where technology can be thought as a mediator or a medium, evoking the poetic gesture of a gathering of machinic affections animated by 100% human breath. A looped form that exists only because it has been something else before. A piece that is constructed from the fusion of science, fiction and life and that seeks to recreate the imaginary of metamorphosis as a poetic gesture of the post-nature that we create together with living and non-living species.

A media artist and VJ from La Plata, Argentina, Joaquina Salgado combines emerging technologies to create otherworldly and abstract images, XR experiences, interactive virtual worlds and A/V performances. Her explorations between the physical and oniric worlds converge in the creation of synthetic environments using real-time technologies, digital sculpting and photogrammetry. Her work reflects on internal programming and the relationship we generate with machines as an interactive mirror.

Her multimedia studies at the Universidad de Artes de La Plata led her to present her work in diverse exhibition contexts such as digital art festivals, night clubs, physical galleries and the metaverse. She has exhibited at festivals such as Mutek and Mirage, and collaborated on projects with Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF). She is also part of Amplify DAI, an international network of women artists and curators working in the digital arts.

Her recent project Water Nodes is a hybrid immersive installation /performance (live +remote) presented with choreographer Sumedha Bhattacharyya (India) at Goldsmiths university that reminisces cross-cultural, personal, maternal histories inherited/passed on in the body. By evoking family archive photographs, spiritual and mythological references, the performance considers in the quality of water a passage for memories to flow, contain and dissipate.

Joaquina Salgado Collection