WERNER VAN DER ZWAN
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Autoprothesis
2024 - current

material

wood
bellows
electronics Autoprothesis (2025) imagines prosthetic body parts no longer as extensions of a human body, but as autonomous fragments that must learn to coexist. This installation consists of three robotic sculptures that take the shape of body parts: lungs made from bellows and organ pipes breathe gently, a wooden leg stretches and bends, and the finger beckons. 

In collaboration with choreographer Marta Wörner, I developed a script in which the three elements respond to one another, like a body that has fallen apart yet continues to react as a whole. Together they form an artificial corps morcelé, a body assembled from prosthetic fragments that retain traces of a shared body.

I carved the forms from wood by hand, which lends the sculptures a softness that contrasts with the mechanics that drive them. The robotic body is usually associated with efficiency and control, but I instead seek a relationship grounded in fragility and dependency rather than mastery. 







Shown at:

Prospects and Concepts
Art Rotterdam 
Ahoy 
Rotterdam, NL

Open Studios Borgerstraat
Rotterdam, NL

Swoosh
Kunsthal 45
Den Helder, NL



First version on show at Kunsthal 45 : s




Location:

Open Studios Borgerstraat
Borgerstraat
Rotterdam

Swoosh
Kunsthal 45
Den Helder, NL
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