Aithér

Berenice Olmedo explores the realms of diseases, bodies, and assistive technologies with the devices and apparatuses designed to aid human bodies as a central tenant to her artistic discourse. Her approach, however, goes beyond merely presenting and showcasing these devices in their already uncanny and hallucinatory material forms—apparatuses inherently possessing an eerie quality. Olmedo’s objective is to intervene in these objects, infusing them with a sense of movement and robotisation.

Within her work lies an inherent tension. It revolves around the contrast between artifacts and living bodies, which are entities in perpetual motion, encompassing translational movement and growth and metabolic processes. As Aristotle noted, life itself is characterized by its intrinsic motion. Regardless of the state of vitality, whether afflicted by disease or diminished capacity, all living things are in constant motion, even if such motion is partially impaired. Thus, one of the defining features of the living is their ability to move.
Conversely, machines, products of artifice, are inherently static entities. They do not possess an innate capacity for self-movement, at least not until the advent of robotics and the automation of motion.

Olmedo’s work thrives within this realm of tension—the interplay of movement. The machines and artifacts she presents originate from the field of medicine and are designed to assist and facilitate the movement of human bodies. These devices undergo technical modifications in Olmedo’s work to enable them to move autonomously. The human bodies are conspicuously absent, referenced only through their afflictions and represented through depictions of their illnesses and diseases.

Sickness is an undeniable and intrinsic aspect of life. It’s a fundamental facet of the human condition, and no lived experience has not encountered suffering, pain, or illness. Human life is uniquely aware of its mortality and sometimes can receive medical assistance. This feature must not be extended to wildlife, which needs to remain on the periphery of technical remedies to continue being wild.

A life that undergoes medical intervention becomes a body interpreted through various techniques and devices, subjected to the influence of machines and different medical procedures. These bodies, transformed through such interventions, take on new forms and give rise to alternative perspectives and imaginings: Reformed bodies.

Olmedo’s latest exhibition features sculptures inspired by the CircOlectric hospital bed and the gyroscope. CT scans of patients with internal prostheses, cancers, or tumors serve as the foundation for her inventions. With Z-brush software, each sculpture is generated and 3D printed, while surgical tools from traumatology are used to create unique supports. The sculptures are made of Orfit Colors NS, a low-temperature orthotic plastic that becomes malleable when immersed in water, allowing them to mimic the human body’s adaptability.

Berenice Olmedo’s work delves into the interplay between the animate and the artificial, exploring the profound contrast between life’s dynamic nature and machines’ static essence through the fact that both the body and the machine have been reformed through technology.

— María Antonia González Valerio

Press :
Mousse Magazine
Art21
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Contemporary Art Library
Contemporary Art Daily

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