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Avatar Skin
Drifts of the Trans-Apparent

by Merlina Rañi

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The sculpting body is transformed. The heat of a living body emanates in the intimacy of its relation with the immaterial, the emotion of the touch implicit in the digital.

Embodied within the avatar is the idea that what is outwardly one is actually many, because of the crowd that inhabits us . Bitten by the desire for unity, we simulate a coherent and cohesive self, but inside us there is a lot of noise; it is almost all there is .

The skin combines all our parts into one body . It allows us to feel that which is other. Where understanding becomes difficult, we crave touch. We exist in the power of the generation and regeneration of the tissues that weave together that which is open.

Where there are no certainties, an infinite field is opened to curiosity . The virtuality of our existence transforms the way we embrace ourselves and thus the way we interact with everything else.

Having dissolved our own image, countless possibilities arise. The avatar skin is infinitely editable. Its remnants contain symbols we repeat to invoke ourselves; but on the outside, we find this unrecognizable flesh through which we transport heat to make our skin less morbid.

The skin extends beyond the avatar, looking for more life – to be touched as well to be seen. Gradually human forms are forgotten, and with them the social convention implied by the human.

Meanwhile, we project ourselves onto this extensive, disembodied skin that behaves as a symbolic and affective network . A simulated skin, as depicted, marked as a proof of existence.

Between what happened and what could happen, between fragments, we construct new narratives that support the disparate content of experience . The only way to figure ourselves again is to draw the blurred . See the orange sun through the eyelids. Look for the trans-apparent feeling of the skin .

– Merlina Rañi, 2022.

About the Exhibition.

Avatar Skin is a collaborative work presented as an online experience that accompanies the reflections in Ver Clausi's series of artworks exploring the skin as a symbolic and affective network.

Building upon his practice as a tattoo artist, Ver investigates the aesthetic and philosophical connotations of tattooing. The artist’s process combines drawing, photogrammetry, 3D modeling, and post-production editing.

Both the tattoo and the avatar relate to the customization of the body and the production of the self. However, there is an underlying theme that resonates without being directly addressed: mutations in the production of subjectivity. In this way the skin plays a central role, because it both defines individuality and makes connections with others possible.

This porous, sensitive, changing membrane, which for Ver is the canvas of his artworks, also becomes the object of his question. Through the exercise of portraying tattoos on skin – throughout different artworks, series, and productions – the question of how to interpret the digitality of skin persists. How can we capture the expressivity of something that depends on physical experience, and how can skin therefore be conceptualized?

The skin, synonymous with intimacy and sensitivity, is endowed with connotations that extend far beyond its visual aspect. As a first interface to experience: where is it located as data? In what way is it part of the virtuality that we increasingly inhabit? What does that skin contain, what parts does it choose to join, and what body does it form?

To extend this reflection to the field of figuration, Ver turned his own image into the work. Unfolded within the digital logic, the artist’s physical form is multiplied and recursive, like the construction of our electronic selves.

– Merlina Rañi, 2022.

Credits

Avatar Skin by Ver Clausi
Presented by TDC gallery
Curated by Merlina Rañi (website | instagram)

Graphic Design: Javier Serena (fluo | instagram)
Website Development: Renee Carmichael (website | instagram)
Production: Celina Pla (espacio pla | instagram)
Direction, Tara Digital Collective: Sarah Moosvi

The fonts Picnic (designed by Marielle Nils) and Uncut Sans VF (designed by UNCUT.wtf) were used for this site.