‘in short, we are cyborgs.’ // curator


‘we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs’

‘in short, we are cyborgs.’ is a continuation of the programme ‘we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids’ which started at the Royal College of Art, as part of the Curating Contemporary Art Graduate Show. Invited by OmVed Gardens to host this project in the space where it started, we are presenting the work of artists Laura Selby and Paula Proaño Mesías.


In A Cyborg Manifesto, Donna Haraway uses the concept of the cyborg as a metaphor for the blurring of boundaries between nature and culture. Traditionally seen as separate domains: nature as the realm of the organic and inherent, and culture as the realm of human-made – constructed realities here are contested. By existing simultaneously as a product of natural processes and technological advancements, the cyborg shows how these realms are not mutually exclusive but are interconnected and co-constitutive.

In the past century, humans have used technology to monopolise and capture Earth’s soundscape. Beyond using technology to extract sound, can we repurpose it to decentralise the human through listening practices? Informed by her practice of deep listening and field recording, sound artist Laura Selby led a workshop at OmVed Gardens where participants engaged in sonic contamination exercises, from which the chromatography prints exhibited here were made as a visual mapping of more-than-human sonic ecology.

Further blurring the boundary between human, more-than-human and cyborg, Paula Proaño Mesías's work explores these intersections through her “Affectus” series, part of it included here. By incorporating elements from reconstructive medical sciences, biological structures, and animal prosthetics, such as the beak of Grecia the toucan, her pieces embody the fusion of nature and technology. Through several screenings from both artists and a performance evening we invite the audience to contemplate how technology is not merely an external tool or extension of ourselves, but rather an intrinsic part of our being — a complex and interconnected hybrid of the organic and the synthetic, the human and the more-than-human, that challenges our understanding of identity, agency, and coexistence.



Artists:
Laura Selby, Paula Proaño Mesías

Curators:
Tamara Manova, Zosia Kierkuś

Laura Selby’s collaborators:
Videography and Film: Sunghoon Song
Interaction Visual Design: Bryan Yueshen Wu
Print and projected animation by Priysha Rajvanshi

Graphic Design:
Tamara Manova
Zosia Kierkuś

Partners:
OmVed Gardens