MOTHER OF HOMO-MEDIA-COMMODITUS - 2018

Kunst op de Kofie Arnhem

The inspiration for Mother of Homo-Media-Commoditus derives from the summer excavations in Arnhem in 2016.
Human skeletons and commodities were buried as a result of the bombing of the city of Arnhem in WW2.
The archeological sights were open to the public and archeologists were meticulously cleaning bones and parts of broken commodities, the findings were on public display. The brutal fusion of the exhibited commodities and skeletons was the inspiration for creating the Homo-Media-Commodituses sculpture.

In 2017 I staged an archeological excavation in a garden during an Art event set in several private houses in Arnhem. The partly buried installation composed of a large seized skull with eyes composed of TV screens with the rest of the body made out of commodities like parts of central heating, washing machine etc. This symbolic figure served as a reminder of the primordial struggle between species, a trace of our civilization.
Just like Neanderthals were eliminated/replaced  by evolutionary logic by homo sapiens, the latter faces elimination by homomediacomoditus.
Here I refer to the upcoming mutation of homo sapiens by two forces: firstly by the contemporary post-modern ideology, secondly by science & technology biogenetic manipulation and bureaucratic-technological superiorities which historically was one of the causes of nazism.

As a result of meditation on these subjects I made a series of paintings that are structurally connected with the underground discoveries in the city center of Arnhem.
In the paintings one can see the transformation/mutation from one species into a new; Homo-Media-Commodituses. This new species is nurtured and raised by the Media and Commodities of our epoch. In this transformation media & social media are the main source, the stream of food for the unconscious: a new spirituality.
Commodification of humans by the ideology and logic of capitalism and and literal investment in the body of humans by science, for instance by biogenetical manipulation, is the process of the creation of a brand new species; here we can say Karl Marx is still relevant.