Dec 15

Dec 15 The Sick Oscillator Boy

As visual creatives, we are naturally conditioned to shooting on location with large, artistic teams, however in this post-pandemic world, this is no longer plausible at the scale we perhaps would like.

Matteo Masali, also known as The Sick Oscillator Boy (after a techno band him and his friends once formed) took this matter into his own hands, by mimicking the visuals of location shooting digitally using Google Street View, as well as creating absurd and twisted portraits that address our place as humans in a world so dominated by technology.

Now that so many artists are favouring a digital outlook, it leaves us considering where our tactile, human skills are useful anymore, and where the future of art is headed, which Masali often considers in his work.

Masali’s portraits are reminiscent of images created by Artificial Intelligence that are currently flooding TikTok- strange, warped and blurred outlines of subjects that show technologies ever-growing grasp on reality and the physical world. The portraits consider how technology may impact our future evolution and humans, as well as the future ahead of us as we continue to liase with machinery.

The works themselves feel existential and dystopian, a dialogue on the fear surrounding technology with constant surveillance, tracking and growing digital footprints. Entering sites nowadays, we are always asked for consent on cookies and trackers in order to cater advertisement and sales towards us as individuals.

Masali places a dialogue on this phenomenon, creating warped visuals that address the duality of man with both our physical existence documented online with programs such as Google Street View, alongside our digital online which can be manipulated and warped, just like Masali’s twisted portraits.

Whilst we are tracked everywhere, naturally profiled and therefore recognisable due to this, we in response, or perhaps contradiction, constantly edit and manufacture our own images online to fit what we wish to portray to the world. His deformed imagery addresses where this movement may be headed, with influencers such as Lil Miquela in the public’s eye, it allows us to consider how far photo editing can go, and where it leaves our physical forms.