Vanitech

Vanitech is a series of photographs in the style of vanitas still life paintings. The work takes up mortality as its theme, reimagining the traditional motifs of the genre for the 21st century. The common symbol of skulls is replaced by a synthetic model; death is represented by the “blue screen of death”; literature by obsolete How-to manuals.

Vanitech explores how death and mortality are expressed in a contemporary world characterized by digital signifiers and the disappearance of traditional motifs from our visual language. Vanitas as a genre finds its origin in 16th and 17th century art, reflecting a cultural acceptance (and even obsession) with death and mortality. What place does this genre have in the 21st century where these subjects are often suppressed from popular culture?