Fatigue testing aims to measure the strength of materials. It is typically conducted in controlled environments by subjecting a specific material to cyclic loads to observe its response, behavior, and to determine if and when it reaches the point of rupture. This test allows us to ascertain the material’s expected lifespan and study its strength, identifying the critical breaking point beyond which there is no return.

In her latest exhibition, Portuguese artist Vera Mota draws a series of interesting parallels between the fatigue of materials and the fatigue of the body that handles them. Her studio is also a kind of continuous test in which the materials for her sculptures and herself are subject to constant change, friction, reconfiguration and movement. While fatigue testing on materials follows standardized procedures with well-defined tests, measuring fatigue in the human body poses unique challenges. How does one gauge the internal organ frictions? How do resistance and critical breaking values translate into the organism?

The new works comprising this exhibition attempt to address these questions through a series of plastic fictions and poetic speculations, aiming to explore the limits of the body and imagine its various possibilities and evolutions. To achieve this, the artist has employed industrial materials and processes, such as plexiglass forming a crystalline lattice[1] or brass sheets composing her eponymous series. These wall pieces showcase a contrast between rounded, organic forms and the reflective golden material. The body continually encounters the industrial in these new works, blending originality with the idea of serial repetition and patterns found in nature. These encounters bring us closer to the notion of a posthuman aesthetic, as expressed by Bourriaud:

“We must add to all speculations about human aesthetics the dams constructed by beavers, the pollination of bees, or the abstraction of butterflies… If the latter organically compose forms on their wings, while humans externalize and project forms in front of them, isn’t it just a difference in means?”[2]

Similarly, the exhibition journey features organic accumulations reminiscent of tattered fabrics or viscera undergoing friction. In this series of proposals for hybrid and fictional organs, the forms evoke a liver, lung, pelvis, but also the outline of a leaf or a cluster of fungi. While Deleuze and Guattari speculated on the concept of a body without organs, Vera Mota experiments with a profusion of them to grasp the idea of a transforming body, but where is it headed?

In the same way, as we walk through the exhibition, we find organic accumulations reminiscent of shredded tissues or viscera undergoing friction. In this series of proposals for hybrid and fictional organs, the forms evoke a liver, lung, pelvis, but also the outline of a leaf or a cluster of fungi. While Deleuze and Guattari speculated on the concept of a body without organs, Vera Mota experiments with a profusion of them to grasp the idea of a transforming body, but where is it headed?

Returning to the study of materials, the exhibition’s starting point, according to the mechanics of deformable solids, we can speak of two types of transformations: elastic, where the material returns to its original form upon removing the applied load, and plastic, which is permanent and irreversible. Isn’t the history of the body itself one of irreversible plastic transformations? Finally, the body can also be understood as just another material in the artistic creation process. In this sense, the performance practice that the artist has developed in her career opens the door to that interpretation: the body as a material that is used, experienced, as a reality subjected to different loads and efforts, transforming, fatiguing, and perhaps reinventing itself, always changing form.

Esmeralda Gómez Galera.

[1] The title of this work refers to the characteristic structure of solid materials.

[2] Bourriaud, Nicolas. Inclusions: Aesthetics of the Capitalocene. Pages. 19-20. (Translated from the Spanish edition)