Once I Had a Soul by Shankar Saanthakumar and Anguanatatu(Veronica Merlo)

Once I Had A Soul

Once I Had A Soul, by Shankar Saanthakumar and Anguanatatu (Veronica Merlo), borrows concepts from Hindu art around the cycle of life then fuses them with contemporary ideas around non-human embodied intelligence in computational systems. The result is a speculation on how post-human societies may narrate their own origin stories to their offspring.

Anguanatatu is a painter, printmaker and tattoo artist. She moved to Edinburgh to work as a studio assistant for Edinburgh Printmakers Studio, along with a tattoo apprenticeship at Plus48 Tattoo Studio. She has been tattooing since 2018 and she is now a resident artist at Miracles Tattoo Studio on Leith Shore. The study of faces and masks has been a recurring motif for her. For this project the research and hand crafting of mask features unleashed deeper translations into expressions about what makes us human, what it is to be alive in a progressive yet chaotic world.

Shankar Saanthakumar, a sculptor and computational artist, explores themes of perception and embodiment through digital-analogue hybrids. He is also a regular performer at Wavetable, a monthly night of experimental electronic music in Edinburgh, where he creates live-coded visuals. For this project he was particularly interested in the study of folds in embryonic growth, and how these can be morphed across bronze casting, paint, and computational abstractions to imagine post-human offspring.

Supported by:

Éon (sound)

Canvas and Panels

Visual Artist and Craft Maker Awards (VACMA)