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The Sculptural Stages Of Cyborg Life

Ziwon Wang creates various amalgamations of the man/machine hybrid.

Kwanon-Z

In his work, Ziwon Wang questions human identity in a technologically evolving world. Like fellow sculptor Seong-Woon Shim, Wang expresses his ideas about the inevitable marriage of human and mechanical forms.

While Shim builds external mechanical extensions of the human body, Wang’s work conveys the internalization of technology, yielding partly organic, partly robotic beings reminiscent of Chris Cunningham’s imagery for Björk’s “All Is Full Of Love,” and the seminal manga/anime franchise Ghost In The Shell.

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Wang’s work invokes a mixture of familiarity and discomfort, featuring a recurring character known simply as “Z.” His piece Baby-Z is a disturbing but strangely innocent representation of an infant fused onto—and supported by—metal machinery, while Buddha-Z combines elements of Buddhism and the cyborg, borrowing from the structures of temples and figures in Buddhism. As he explores various perspectives on human existence and their fusion with the mechanical, Wang raises questions about the fate of mankind in an increasingly technological landscape.

Baby-Z

Buddha-Z