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ART + CULTURE: This nightmare hybrid of human and machine examines our dependency on technology

Images + Video: UJOO+LIMHEEYOUNG
Words: Emma de Clercq

The aptly titled sculptures Machine With Hair Caught In It present a bizarre and uneasy hybrid of hair and machine. The two contraptions, created in 2015 and 2017 by creative duo UJOO+LIMHEEYOUNG, consist of gleaming gear wheels with long tufts of shiny, black hair attached.

As the machine moves, the hair begins to twist and untwist as the gears rotate in different directions. Meanwhile, the 2017 version adds a violent, winch-inducing dimension to the cycle as the hair becomes caught in the chains, loudly crackling and snapping between its churning wheels.

Describing their interest in exploring “the chaos” of the modern world, the duo’s creation of this machine, unstoppable in its nightmarish cycle, seems an evocative metaphor for the dependency of human on machine: a fraught relationship which is constantly charging forward – for better or worse – through the development of new technologies.

  • ANTHROPOLOGY OF HAIR
  • ANTHROPOLOGY OF HAIR
  • ANTHROPOLOGY OF HAIR
  • ANTHROPOLOGY OF HAIR
  • ANTHROPOLOGY OF HAIR