Cassian Robbertze South African, b. 1997
Serenity was one of my earliest works exploring the post-digital world. The sculpture depicts a nude female figure reclining in quiet repose upon a plastiglomerate rock etched with the patterns of a circuit board. Sculpted naturalistically, she gazes outward into the distance, contemplative yet entirely at ease within her environment.
The rock functions as both geological form and technological remnant, suggesting a landscape in which synthetic material has fused with the natural world and become inseparable from it. The circuitry embedded across its surface hints at systems and infrastructures that persist long after their original function has faded from understanding.
Positioned partially upon the rock and partially upon the base, the figure occupies a threshold between the organic and the constructed. Yet the work does not present this condition as conflict. Like the inhabitants of this speculative world, she exists within it without resistance or estrangement. Technology has ceased to appear exceptional; it has instead become embedded within the terrain of everyday life.