chimera

source: bnonl

Shai Langen is afgestudeerd aan de HKU met het project ‘Chimera’. Na te experimenteren met speciale materialen en het testen van verschillende technieken gebruikte Langen zijn bevindingen – gemuteerde stof (geënt op cellulaire structuren, schimmels en zwammen ) – om de veranderlijkheid van het menselijk lichaam te onderzoeken. ‘Chimera’ gaat op zoek naar de scheiding tussen levende en niet levende materie.
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source: trendtablet
Shai Langen just graduated from the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht, The Netherlands.

« Chimera is a project , depicting a contestable future where the human body is grown and cultivated. A material based entity whose boundaries continually undergo construction and reconstruction. Moving away from a solid to a liquid form.

Here it has become an amalgam of the synthetic and the organic. Its skin infested by fungi like textures, feeding of its host. Synthetic cellular structures constricting its carnality, growing in stasis, waiting to unveil its newly formed function.This new malleable body, has become a place where plastic parasitic substances emulate the immaterial, intuitively revealing its architect.

The collection consists of different pieces of liquid latex, that emerge through the emulsifying reaction of latex with calcium nitrate. Calcium nitrate is used in the balloon, latex gloves and condom industry to create a uniform film of latex around a mold. The molds are first dipped in a bath of water and calcium nitrate before being dipped into liquid latex. I’ve been experimenting with the shapes that form through dripping latex into the emulsion of water and calcium nitrate. By changing the viscosity of both the latex and the emulsion I was able to create different outcomes.
Each piece of the collection asks for a different thickness of the latex as well for a different technique of dripping. A lot of experimentation was needed to find the right method, since the material is very perceptible to numerous components, such as water surface tension, ratio calcium nitrate and water, drying process, etc.

With the different techniques I created a collection that resembles cellular structures, slime molds and fungi-like textures, that are created and formed like living and growing organisms. These textures are both organic and synthetic. Exploring the boundary between living matter and non living matter.

Chimera plays with the concept where the organic is overgrown with the synthetic. Where natural processes mutate the skin into fungi like textures. Like living organisms feeding off its host. And where the synthetic is governed by the organic. A place where plastic parasitic substances emulate and imitate the immaterial. Intuitively revealing its architect. »
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source: cargocollective

Welcome to the new body.

For it has become an amalgam of the synthetic and the organic. A material based entity whose boundaries continually undergo construction and reconstruction.

Its biotic barrier infested by fungi like textures, feeding of its host. Synthetic cellular structures constricting its carnality, growing in stasis, waiting to unveil its newly formed function.

The new malleable body, has become a place where plastic parasitic substances emulate the immaterial, intuitively revealing its architect.

This chimera, both corporal and conceptual, postulates of a world where the sacred is not foreign to the flesh.
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source: tomboybklyn
Some believe the purpose of art is to extract some kind of feeling, happiness, disgust, fear, sadness, joy. Whatever the emotion the hope of the piece in front of you is to bring this out. I noticed that many of the feelings I have are either super nostalgic or slightly creepy. I’m sure there are some Freudian issues deep within this, but I suppose we could touch on that a bit later, after some whiskey I might imagine.

But I digress…the case of the creepy feelings have come forth after viewing the work of Shai Langen an Amsterdam based artist I took note of via WGSN. Trained at the HKU Utretch School of the Arts, Langen has taken an amazing hold on fabric creation with a play on the organic and strong holds to biology. Many of these fabrics resemble cellular structures, mold, and fungi. My attraction stems from my interest in science, specifically biology and anatomy, and quite frankly, my love of sci-fi. I find myself attracted to the creepy unknown of what these fabrics can transform into, or transform the wearer into.

‘After experimenting with the viscosity of both materials and testing different dripping techniques, Langen used the findings – mutated matter – to investigate the transformability of the human body. chimera envisions the malleable body as an amalgam of the synthetic and the organic in which hybrid materials seemingly grow over the wearer’s skin to blur the boundaries between the living and the lifeless.’ Floor Kuitert
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source: dettonacombr

Nativo de Amsterdam, Shai Langen é um artista plástico que mistura suas obras a fotografias de maneira peculiar e consistente.

Shai se define como um artista visual e busca transmitir através de seus projetos a inquietação e o vazio do prazer humano em obras conceituais que contrastam a leveza de um cenário inexistente e a agonia e fragilidade do indivíduo perante os materiais aplicados.

Na maioria de suas fotografias – em grande parte feita para a indústria fashion e com o auxílio de outros fotógrafos – o artista é o seu próprio modelo e assume comportamentos hedônicos para concretizar seus trabalhos.