Immaterial Becoming — osseous matter

Osseous Matter is pleased to present Immaterial Becoming: an exhibition that, in the midst of a global pandemic, focuses on social ecologies, technology, and their somatic impact. Due to legislative restrictions, the heightened use of screen-based technology shifts the body from a physical to an immaterial reality. Immaterial Becoming probes how contemporary artists use technology and the human body to resist hegemonic viewing practices. The included works push against normative, straight images, and consider modes of surveilling in and between our collective human experience.

As both a mode of protection and a defense mechanism, Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya’s body morphs into unimaginable shapes. By using Facetune, a technology typically used to enhance and beautify physical appearances, Montoya subverts mainstream corporal standards. The artist describes his creations as “a decolonial futurism by the aid of magical realism and science fiction. This is a future where; hybridity, myth making, and the fantastic inhabit the mundane along tangents of non-linear time”. Working similarly, Tyler Cala Wiliams pushes the boundaries of post-production, entirely modulating digital portraiture. Williams’ work is not quite a photograph, not quite a painting, but somewhere in between. This undefined materiality subverts our societal tendency to construct rigid categorizations. Williams’ images exaggerate the transformation of time and reimagine the essence of humanity.

Daniel Rajcsanyi directly inserts a selfie stick into their anus, provoking a relationship between the spectator and the performer. This renowned device becomes an extension of the body, challenging the ways in which we view, consume, and experience new age intimacy. Meanwhile, Kostis Fokas creates images that simultaneously seduce and resist a hypersexualized gaze. Physical and spatial tension unfolds; the photographed bodies are found in fragmented, vulnerable positions. Iain Emaline confronts the power and complexities of religious doctrine on the impressionable nature of adolescence. Welcome, Please Help Yourself is a stark portrayal of the consumption of dogma, while Untitled (Savior Complex) depicts an environment that is forced onto the body--symbolizing prescribed ideology and the erasure of individualism.