The identity of a subject is fragmented, uncertain, unfixed, not compatible with a linear way of thinking. So is the body and its significations, or meaning-making processes rooted in the phenomenological experience of the world.
EPI/DERMIS is an attempt to embody the hybrid. It reflects on the dialectic relationship between the body and identity – natural and unnatural, human and inhuman, beautiful and grotesque, compelling and repulsive – by using skin, bridge and barrier between an inner and outer world. The elements in play create an entanglement of structures and environments that are constantly evolving.
In the form of a series of physical experiments aiming to explore the aesthetic dimension of experience, the project entails the display of a body that is fluid and mobile through the re-sculpting of its surface (a re-skinning of the body), and engages with the transition from material to immaterial – object to screen and screen to object – by conceiving the screen itself as both a 'second skin' and a boundary between the digital and physical world.
![*Sculptural Silicone Prosthetic*, detail](https://2023.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/isabella-utria-mago/85cb49b360-1686181061/1-visual-asset-1-1500x-q90.jpg)
Sculptural Silicone Prosthetic, detail
![*Sculptural Silicone Prosthetic*, detail](https://2023.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/isabella-utria-mago/bf74b75735-1686181294/2-visual-asset-2-1500x-q90.jpg)
Sculptural Silicone Prosthetic, detail
![*Sculptural Silicone Prosthetic*](https://2023.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/isabella-utria-mago/f3f7ae93f4-1686181294/3-visual-asset-6-1500x-q90.jpg)
Sculptural Silicone Prosthetic
![*Silicone Sculpture: Reconstitution*, projection](https://2023.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/isabella-utria-mago/80f1fd79d8-1686181365/4-visual-asset-10-2-1500x-q90.jpg)
Silicone Sculpture: Reconstitution, projection
![*Glitch*, projection](https://2023.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/isabella-utria-mago/4804976114-1686181985/5-visual-asset-11-1500x-q90.jpg)
Glitch, projection
![*Glitch*, projection](https://2023.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/isabella-utria-mago/30b310142f-1686181985/6-visual-asset-8-2-1500x-q90.jpg)
Glitch, projection
![*Silicone Sculpture: Reconstitution*, still image](https://2023.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/isabella-utria-mago/da61dfbb43-1686181985/7-visual-asset-4-1500x-q90.jpg)
Silicone Sculpture: Reconstitution, still image
![*Silicone Sculpture: Reconstitution*, still image](https://2023.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/isabella-utria-mago/54f384e9a8-1686182384/8-visual-asset-12-1500x-q90.jpg)
Silicone Sculpture: Reconstitution, still image
![Hybrid visual generated with machine learning experiment. Visual Input: *Silicone Sculptures*](https://2023.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/isabella-utria-mago/24361f102c-1686182706/9-visual-asset-13-1500x-q90.jpg)
Hybrid visual generated with machine learning experiment. Visual Input: Silicone Sculptures
![Hybrid visual generated with machine learning experiment. Visual Input: *Silicone Sculptures*](https://2023.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/isabella-utria-mago/46b026368b-1686183253/10-visual-asset-14-1500x-q90.jpg)
Hybrid visual generated with machine learning experiment. Visual Input: Silicone Sculptures