Title of the Work of Art:

The Realisation of One's Own Biological Death

Date of Creation:
2017
Period-Movement:
Contemporary Art, Conceptual Art
Technique:
Sculpture
Materials:
Safe, DNA, dried excrements, human hair, human nails
Dimensions:
Not Stated


Artwork Description:
This work serves as a meditation on the ever-present specter of death, even as humanity marshals science and technology to preserve itself. By blurring the boundaries between life and machine, the artist examines death not simply as an endpoint, but as a concept subject to redefinition and transition. The merging of machines and humans in the artwork represents a transformation of selfhood, suggesting that advances in technology may allow for persistence beyond bodily mortality. This sculpture of biological remnants encased in a box serves as a concrete example that connects to the essay’s broader argument: the preservation of these biological records, while offering the prospect of continuity and the dream of immortality, actually highlights the fragility and impermanence of the body, memory, and existence in the post-industrial era. Thus, the work exemplifies how contemporary artistic practices interrogate and complicate traditional understandings of mortality, reinforcing the idea that technological progress both reconfigures and reveals the limits of human preservation.