Cibelis – PhMuseum

Cibelis originates from the ritual of the Vattienti, an historic devotional apply rooted in acts of self-flagellation. Emerging from this context of embodied ache and collective reminiscence, the work explores the delicate energy of the picture.

Cibelis originates from the ritual of the Vattienti of Nocera Terinese, a controversial Italian devotional apply that also includes self-flagellation with a device referred to as cardo. It is a round cork instrument geared up with shards of glass, which, when in touch with the pores and skin, causes lacerations and bleeding. Every yr, throughout Holy Week, a whole bunch of Vattienti stroll by the streets of the city and canopy them with blood.

The photographs of the undertaking inhabit an area suspended between documentation and fiction. Through unnatural chromatic decisions, digital insertions and manipulations with Artificial Intelligence, the artist constructs a universe that disrupts the linearity of custom with a purpose to open it to new interpretations. In this world, the cardo transforms, taking up totally different manifestations, as a part of a taxonomic examine.

Cibelis can be an investigation into the facility of photographs and their fragility. These are pictures that originate from ache and current themselves to the viewer as unsure simulacra. This reflection extends to using Artificial Intelligence, which turns into an integral a part of the work. With the assistance of AI, the artist created the Cardo-Camera, a functioning gadget that reinterprets the ritual device of the Vattienti by reworking it right into a photographic digicam. Each contact with the pores and skin prompts a shot: the act of flagellation, which as soon as produced solely blood, now generates photographs.