Mafe Izaguirre

Mafe Izaguirre is a Venezuelan artist, graphic designer, and educator based in New York, who explores the aesthetics of the artificial mind. Through experimentation in cybernetics, her work inquiries the space of interaction as a body. Her sensitive machines mimic the human consciousness. Many people find absurd the idea of sensitive machines developing the ability to “feel” emotions. Framed as The Mind Project, she unfolds this controversial subject matter of hybrid spiritual systems.
“I believe technology can help us to understand and extend human nature. Through my machines, I establish a dialogue with the subtle body— my soul, and yours. I am looking for the poetry within the interaction between humans and machines, the echoes, and their resonance. I experiment with microcontrollers, light, and electromagnetism as the raw materials for making my cybernetic sculptures. They are sensitive machines™ that use color, movement, and sound as their language to express their feelings. During the interaction, what we feel and our intention move to the center of the stage. Our presence matters, becoming meaningful and making us aware of how others impact us and how we may impact others. My work proposes a social turn framed by the philosophical posthumanism ideas, which poses the human as a plural, fluid, and decentered being interacting in multiple spaces with machines, software, other species, and hybrid systems.”