Cassian Robbertze South African, b. 1997
I Grow Numb presents a seated male figure suspended in a moment of prolonged stillness, his body contorted into an unnatural, strained position. One arm reaches behind his head, the other holds a phone, the sole anchor of his attention. His gaze is fixed, unwavering, absorbed entirely within the digital space he inhabits.
Beneath and around him, hybrid rock formations, suggestive of Plastiglomerate, begin to merge with his body. These materials appear to grow into him, as though time itself has thickened, fixing him in place. The longer he remains, the more indistinguishable he becomes from the ground he occupies.
The work draws on a familiar physical experience: the creeping numbness that follows prolonged stillness, when circulation dulls and sensation fades. Here, that temporary condition is extended into permanence. The figure does not adjust or recover; he endures, allowing his body to recede from awareness.
This physical numbness is mirrored by a more subtle, metaphysical condition. As his attention is wholly consumed by the device in his hand, his capacity for engagement with the immediate world diminishes. The continuous absorption of digital content produces its own form of desensitisation, a flattening of response, a quiet erosion of presence. The mind, like the body, grows numb.
In I Grow Numb, the hierarchy between the physical and the digital is not simply inverted, but collapsed. The figure does not choose one over the other in any active sense; instead, he relinquishes both, settling into a state of passive endurance where sensation, whether bodily or cognitive, gradually dissolves.