LOST LINKS is a project of Katy Vives Phipps and Riot Über Alles with the collaboration of the musician Cristian Vogel.
ORIGIN OF THE PROJECT
The original idea was to assemble fragments of X-rays of animals, machines and humans to create a series of humorous and absurd forms, impossible beings. However, the very nature of the material led to a far more solemn result: the birth of the Lost Links - a collection of articulated hybrids that correspond to universal myths with such naturalness that makes it impossible to deny their reality, based on the existence of X-rays.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROJECT
After establishing the mythological imagery, we realized that the best way to display these images was on a photosensitive and translucent material similar to X-ray prints (duratrans) in lightboxes of a human scale (approx.1 x 2 m).
Next to the boxes, a screen with images in movement shows features that confirm their condition of living beings. It will also be possible to listen to the hybrid in its habitat: its voice, songs, movements or response to its surroundings.
All of which will be accompanied by bio-physiological and biometric data of the “imagined” individual in another backlit box.
And finally, evidence of their existence in popular imagery: an archaeo-psychic on-line list of the thousands of references to these beings of living mythology that exist on the internet.
HYBRIDARIUM
The Lost Links are hybrids with human, animal or mechanical components. They represent the infinite possible amalgams between human and non human natures or, at least, those that have survived by becoming archetypes.
Once a hybrid is completed, it is classified under one of the four categories into which we have divided an archetypal spectrum covering present, past and future archetypes.
MYTHOLOGY
MERMAID
This classical myth has lasted throughout the history of humanity with hardly any changes in its attributes. It is, then, a hybrid well established in the collective imagery and usually symbolises temptation - one of the versions of the femme fatale, one who seduces with her voice.
We find examples in movies – The little mermaid, 1, 2, 3; Splash, etc. – but particularly in the plastic arts, like the macabre recreation of Juan Cabana’s Mermaids of Lake Maracaibo. Mermaids seem to rouse an atavistic memory of our aquatic origin, in some ways an open possibility of regression or evolution.
SPHINX
Another mythological “animal” representing the possessor of wisdom, of all answers and all past sciences. In our version it is pregnant to symbolise the enigma it conceals.
GORGON
The Gorgon, or Medusa, symbolises the malignant and destructive aspect of female nature. Another femme fatale, who turns those who look at her into stone. Although not as popular as other archetypes, its iconography has been exploited by creators as heterogeneous as Gianni Versace or Josef von Sternberg in his film The Shanghai Gesture and his evil Mother Gin Sling.
MACHINE
CYBORG
This hybrid, half man half machine, represents the mythological being of the Present. Our version is based on the analogy to human physiological functions and their re-structuring with artificial parts. Titanium knees, valves for the heart, plastic hips or a metal plate in the brain, for example, have become familiar components in current reconstruction surgery.
CINEMATOGRAPHIC AND LITERARY
FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER
In some ways related to the Cyborg, this creature has been assembled with mechanical parts but also with fragments of human bodies. It symbolises the loss of identity and the taboo of revived dead. The numerous versions of the character created by Mary Shelley that appear regularly show its excellent health as pop icon: Rocky Horror Picture Show, Frankenstein, Young Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Flesh for Frankenstein, The Munsters, etc.
VAMPIRE
Converted into a super-myth thanks to the universal fame of Bram Stocker’s story, Dracula symbolises and at the same time complements the concept of Devil. It is the modern version of the lamiae: its non-alive condition and its god-like capacity for transmutation, together with its need for human blood as forbidden source of energy qualifies it to be included in this category of gruesome creatures.
It has been an endless source of inspiration in art, literature and movies, from the current TV series True Blood, to Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire, Coppola’s Dracula or the Blade saga, among many other versions of this myth.
LYCANTHROPE
Like the Mermaid, the Werewolf enjoys excellent health as a classical myth reinvented over the centuries. From the Celtic legends to Perrault’s Little Red Ridinghood, this anthropomorphic creature symbolises man’s animalism in its most cyclic manifestation. Atavistic fear of being devoured by an evil being of our own species dates back to times when cannibalism was another form of survival. In the Company of Wolves, Pedro Olea’s El bosque del lobo, An American Werewolf in Paris, and, in a more oblique way, Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast are only a few of the many cinema versions of this lunatic being.
MORAL
ANGEL
Another classical example of mythology which, after passing through the filter of Christianity, has stagnated as a representation of the sublime in spirituality, a symbol of protection, and by extension, of goodness. It would be impossible to list the thousands of artistic, graphic, symbolic, cinematographic, literary and religious representations of this hybrid.
DEVIL
Converted into the maximum archetype of evil, its presence in universal imagery remains as forceful as ever. It represents amorality and ambiguity in their purest states.
We have chosen the Tarot of Marseille’s Devil card as reference: its naïf transsexuality reflects the gender changes widely present in our 21st century.
A RADIOGRAPHIC PRINT IS AN IMAGE OF REALITY
The radiographic nature of the Lost Links persuade us not to doubt their existence. By its very nature, an X-ray is irrefutable insofar as it is the inner photograph of a body, intimate and solid proof of its reality.
