Dichotomica is a video animation conceived as a journey toward the dichotomous nature of humankind.

Humans are complex creatures capable of both greatness and destruction, embodying both good and evil.

The whale (in the video, a Humpback whale), an ancient and endangered creature and one of the oldest animals, predates humans. For the artist, this mammal represents our conscience and guides us through different scene installations that depict both the positive and negative aspects of human civilization from the artist’s perspective.

The whale passes through the elements that the artist perceives as beneficial for civilization and collides with all the rest.

The scenes along the journey are conceived as art installations in a ‘white cube’ space aesthetic.

In this journey, the Humpback whale serves as a symbol of the dichotomous nature of humankind. Humpback whales were decimated by commercial whaling in the 19th and early 20th century. They were one of the first species protected under the Endangered Species Conservation Act, the predecessor to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1970. Thanks to global conservation efforts, including the Endangered Species Act, the current population has rebounded to nearly 80,000 Humpback whales, up from a low-point of 10,000 to 15,000. This serves as a poignant reminder of our capacity to both harm and protect the natural world.

NA editing (CRISPR)

Gene editing tool, Nobel Price Chemistry 2020

Plastic pollution

(16.000 plastic bottles are knocked over during the passage of the whale. 16.000 is the number of plastic bottles bought in the world every second)

Roman fresco

(a fragment wall of the most ancient Roman garden paintings ever found in Villa of Livia, Rome, dated from 40 – 20 BC )

Concrete

Concrete is the most widely used man-made material in existence. It is second only to water as the most-consumed resource on the planet.

Cement production is the source of about 8% of the world’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

Ruins

Like in Renaissance iconography, ancient world ruins represent a flourishing of art and science, symbols of enlightenment and repositories of lost knowledge.

Electricity

We are made of ‘flesh and electricity’

Virtual nature 

Nature on a led wall