Organic as mechanic

Auckland artist Lisa Black mixes taxidermy with machinery some sites calling her method “steampunk” modifying a fawn, a turtle, a duckling and a baby crocodile, transforming the once dead into the “cyborg-seeming”. According to Globo, the artist has always been passionate about taxidermy, seeking to create forms that seem alive. In recent years, however, she began substituting the animal’s parts with machinery, like that which can be found in old watches. Black titles each modified creature with the word ‘fixed’, as if to imply that they were somehow broken in their original state. Perhaps, in our technologically hypercharged day and age, it is somehow easier to regard animals as having cold, mechanical innards rather than organic ones almost as if that would alleviate mankind of some moral responsibility in our present relationship with them. Examples of Black’s work are showcased on online portfolio platform Behance.