In February 2024, my article “La science-fiction corporelle dans l’œuvre hyperréaliste de Patricia Piccinini” (Bodily Science Fiction in the Hyperrealistic Work of Patricia Piccinini) was published in Imaginaires du corps, sensualités imaginées (Imaginaries of the Body, Imagined Sensualities), directed by the Laboratoire des imaginaires at the University of Rennes 2. This study explores how Australian artist Patricia Piccinini questions the boundary between humanity and artificiality through her hyperrealistic sculptures inspired by science fiction.
Reference of the conference proceedings:
Jessica Ragazzini, (2024), “La science-fiction corporelle dans l’œuvre hyperréaliste de Patricia Piccinini,” in Imaginaires du corps, sensualités imaginées, under the direction of the Laboratoire des imaginaires, University of Rennes 2.
When Hyperrealism Meets Science Fiction
Patricia Piccinini’s hybrid creatures, both strange and familiar, challenge our perceptions of the body, intimacy, and sensuality. Drawing from biotechnological advances and anticipatory narratives, her work prompts a reflection on the potential transformations of the human body and our relationship with otherness.
Abstract
This article examines the ways in which Patricia Piccinini mobilizes hybrid representations of the body in order to generate ethical and empathic reflections on biotechnologies, living beings, and the relationships between humans and non-humans. Through hyperrealistic sculptures, installations, and science-fiction-inspired stagings, the artist creates creatures that combine human, animal, and vegetal characteristics, thereby blurring the boundaries between nature and artificiality, familiarity and estrangement. This study demonstrates that Piccinini develops a posthumanist aesthetic grounded in affective projection and corporeal comparison, inviting audiences to reconsider their relationship to otherness and to the vulnerability of living beings. Drawing in particular on the theories of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Donna Haraway, Sigmund Freud, and Gilles Deleuze, this article investigates the aesthetic and contextual mechanisms through which the artist transforms monstrous figures into objects of attachment, while simultaneously offering a sensitive critique of contemporary anthropocentrism.
An Interdisciplinary Work on the Representations of the Body
Published in Imaginaires du corps, sensualités imaginées (Imaginaries of the Body, Imagined Sensualities), this article is part of an interdisciplinary project that explores the representation of the body in fantasy, science fiction, and the fantastic. The work analyzes how these genres revisit sensuality and the perception of the human body through various artistic mediums.