Do you think there will ever be a point in which man and machine will merge with one another? What would happen then? Would people turn slowly into robots or would it be the other way around? What aspects of our cultures would survive in a world inhabited solely by hybrids that are half-person, half-machine?
Those concerns are some of the most recurring topics on the work of Pixel Pancho, an Italian artist trained in Spain who mostly treats steampunk topics through illustration and street art. Throughout his work, he creates a world that focuses on the relationship between humans, technology, and nature.
Pancho’s vision portrays a series of beings that are neither natural nor artificial. His android-like characters do not serve only mechanical purposes. Their moving bodies look as graceful as dancing ballerinas. Through their movements, Pancho suggests a world in which sentient machines have developed their own ways of life and emotions, as well as a particular relationship to their environment.
Instead of creating a dystopia where machines ravage nature, as we did throughout the twentieth century, Pancho’s sensitive cyborgs live in a close relationship to the organic world. They are surrounded by images of fertility, flowers, and growing plants. It’s as if these creatures made out of metal , held pagan rituals as the ancient cultures that walked the Earth thousands of years before their invention. Do these beings deem nature so highly because they see themselves as a part of it? Or do they care for it because they also fear its terrible power?
The portraits of the mythically futuristic works of Pixel Pancho are perplexing to any viewer, as they present a man-like expression to humanoids made out of gears, wires, and metal springs. Each of them is unique and different. How did these robot people ever come to be? Were they initially built by humans? Whichever the case, one thing is for sure: all of these characters live through something very similar to emotions. They feel through that strange kind of mechanism that beats inside their chests.
It is difficult to say if these androids go through the exact same emotional and growth processes that men have to live through during the course of their lives, or if they’ve built their a lifestyle of their own. This enigma gets the viewer caught up in the work, fascinated by the cryptic detail. How do these machines live?
Pixel Pancho’s work allures and traps its spectators. by creating a mythological world in which, for some reason, machine and nature have finally managed to live in peace and balance, something humanity utterly failed at doing. We feel astonished by the possibility that there could be a world in which both the mechanical and the organic have spawned beautiful creatures whose only purpose is to protect and celebrate the natural richness of the world. The beauty in the geared-up hearts of these humanoids is a manifestation of the peaceful and selfless care for the world in which they’ve built their homes.
Pixel Pancho works mostly on the walls and streets of Valencia and Torino. You can follow his work on his website and Instagram.
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ReferencesPixel Pancho
