"Like the wasps, I feel interconnected to other species. Avispish is a possible character that lives inside me, it is the result of mixing my morphology with the devices".
Avispish is a character creation project using motion capture techniques. The artist uses the expression of her own face to give life to a digitally sculpted character of mixed genetics.


The project was born in 2022 and has been embodied 3 times so far. Its versions mutate according to the different conceptual and installation proposals of the artist and the institutions that have hosted her.
“If any creatures know what metamorphosis is all about, these are the insects. Let's take wasps as an example. If we compare their morphology in their larva stage and in their adult stage, we could think that they are two different species. Thus, metamorphosis for these organisms implies that within the same life line, they will end up going through multiple experiences. These beings have the capacity to contain diverse forms over the course of their existence.
In this same way, human life unfolds upon its imagination to create technologies that allows it to expand and become something else that is in turn part of itself. Techniques, procedures and designs are refined to exist in a different place, with a digital body embodying an avatar”
Avispish (October 2022)- 8 synchronised screens installation - Festival Bit Bang, Buenos Aires Argentina
“What does poetry say about facial capture?”
With a slightly gentle and slightly severe look, the looped faces of these creatures displayed on the screen evoke the poetic gesture a gathering of machinic affections animated by 100% human breath. A plurality of looped forms that exist only because they have been something else before.
A narrative that is constructed from the fusion of science, fiction and life and that seeks to recreate the imaginary of metamorphosis as a poetic gesture of the post-nature that we create together with living and non-living species.
The first version of the installation "Avispish" took place in 2022 during the International Festival of Animation, Video Games and Digital Art (BITBang) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with the support of British Council and Amplify DAI.


“Each screen displays an animation of a head that began as a self-portrait scanned and sculpted in 3D. In a second instance, a facial capture was made to record different human gestures and thus generate a visual narrative with multiple beings conversing with each other.
The concept that surrounds this piece is the idea of metamorphosis.
We understand that life is always the regeneration of the non-living, as a loop between one realm and the other. One stage and the other. At the same time, this force allows every living being to unfold into multiple forms simultaneously, becoming a plurality of forms.”
Here metamorphosis would be the engine that would allow two incompatible bodies to belong to the same individual. In this case, the nature of technology allows the generation of non-living beings animated by living beings. Here we can see a metamorphosis from a biological entity with tangible matter to a digitally animated non-living entity.
One of the most widespread techniques to create this type of simulations in recent times is motion capture. This technique allows through the sensing of the body, to give a human gesture to a machinic entity, in the act of making a metamorphosis where technology allows us to simulate another life without leaving our form. Unlike insects, these beings only exist on the virtual plane, but they allow us to test morphologies other than our own, conveyed by our body.
Something that cannot be ignored is that we know that the capture of data is widely used for control. Refined machines feed artificial intelligence algorithms. All capturable data is food for datasets/Machine Learning.”
Text by Joaquina Salgado
Avispish (April 2023) - 4 screens installation with in-situ content - Basel, Suiza.
”AVISPISH is a multi-screen artwork featuring animated heads that have been sculpted from various individuals' facial captures. Each screen displays a different head with a range of facial expressions, creating a visual narrative of conversations. The artwork explores the theme of power dynamics and how individuals experience them differently based on their personal histories and cultural backgrounds. It also touches on the impact of digital control and the lack of data privacy on our sense of intimacy. Through anonymous storytelling, Avispish aims to convey personal experiences of these themes in an unusual way. “

“Avispish” Installation during the collective exhibition “Inherited” in Atelier Mondial

Graphic Design: Sylvan Lanz
This version of the installation is the result of explorations that took place during a three-month artistic residency in Switzerland, thanks to the support of ProHelvetia. In this case, the work is influenced by the experiences lived during this time, in particular the political events that the artist experienced together with other artists and activists in the context of the 8M demonstration.
“On International Woman´s Day demonstration in Basel we were forced to go through a police checkpoint where we were photographed and our data was taken, making us part of a police database, ironically on a day when we were demanding our rights.
As an artistic response, I use facial capture to record the gestures of the face and capture the data as in the repression and record and modify the voice, to then be transferred to an avatar. The result is an installation of four screens, each with a fictional character animated 100% by human breath”
As an artistic response, I use facial capture to record the gestures of the face and capture the data as in the repression and record and modify the voice, to then be transferred to an avatar. The result is an installation of four screens, each with a fictional character animated 100% by human breath”
Avispish (May 2023) - Cinema screen projection + Conversatory - Gesto digital en NAVE, Santiago de Chile, Chile.


On this occasion, Avispish was part of a solo exhibition and was projected on a giant screen.
Sound Design by Ramiro Plano

As part of the opening, the artist and the curator Cecilia Checa shared a talk with the public. Image By Vicente Palma