MANNEQUINS: SOME READINGS


Mannequin # 04731 - Perugia


Taking pictures of dummies to discover their semantic power, their metaphorical meaning.

Us and Them. What are the differences? Certainly, they let themselves be photographed. They are not shy. They do not react to the camera's hypnotic force. They are exceptional, impassive models of an almost alien nobility. Is it them who resemble us, or is it us who wish to look like them?

Dreaming of artificial intelligences and cyborgs, in a future that is now increasingly less sci-fi and more available, mannequins remind us of these glorious in-animated creatures, which means "without a soul". Perfect, modeled, programmed creatures. Again, who looks like who?

And then, here is the hand that dresses them, that positions them, that shows them. In its preparation, we can grasp the meaning of its existence infused by the creator. It is a full-fledged replicant, mirror of our induced needs, fetish of the Narcissus God that contemporary society unknowingly adores.

Why do some of them seem more noble than others? It's not just the clothes. The difference is made by the lights, the position of the limbs and the head, or perhaps only our ability to know how to read them, taught us by the culture of the screen to which we all now belong.

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