1. Transitory Artefacts, A Journey through Time and Media +

 

A selection of works produced between 2000 and 2025 exploring archives, algorithms, language and technological transformation across video, installation, photography, drawing and AI-generated media. The projects examine how information shifts between systems, media and temporalities.

 

Das Kapital, Video Installation, 1996 – 2010

 

 

 

 

 

2. Three Studies on Operational Images

 

Images are approached as operational surfaces: captured, transformed, transmitted and reconstructed through biological, algorithmic and media systems.

 

 

1. Marcello Mercado, Non Pixel: 33 Archaeologies of the War Signal , 2026

 

 

Non Pixel: 33 Archaeologies of the War Signal examines images after their collapse into data. Structured as a sequence of textual units, visual fragments and procedural operations, the project approaches war imagery not as representation but as a field of extraction, compression and reconstruction.

The work follows images as they migrate across sensors, storage systems, transmission protocols and algorithmic interpretation.

What remains is neither documentary evidence nor abstraction, but operational residue.

Image termination becomes image production.

Marcello Mercado, Non Pixel: 33 Archaeologies of the War Signal,2026

Signal decomposition · Compression · Sensor logic · Transmission · Operational image

 

 

 

 

 

2. Marcello Mercado,The Hypergaussian Wars, 2025

 

 

The Hypergaussian Wars investigates synthetic conflict environments generated through iterative visual procedures.

Rather than depicting battles, the project models unstable image territories in which bodies, signals and environments emerge from probabilistic accumulation and controlled distortion.

War appears as a condition of computation rather than an event.

The resulting images operate between cinematic language, simulation and failed reconstruction.

Marcello Mercado, The Hypergaussian Wars, 2025

Simulation · Conflict modelling · Procedural image · Computational landscape

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Marcello Mercado, Variations Van Gogh, installation, 2014

 

Van Gogh Variations reconstructs a historical artwork as a distributed system rather than an original object.

Using aerial imaging, drone surveys, color extraction, robotic procedures, biological transformation and algorithmic translation, the project investigates whether an artwork can persist outside conservation through operational replication.

The project asks how an image survives after leaving the canvas.

Marcello Mercado, Variations Van Gogh, installation, 2014

Satellite imaging, drone surveying, color extraction and procedural reconstruction were used to transform Sunflowers into a distributed image system.

 

 

 

 

 

3. Transitory Artefacts: Archives

 

 

 

On the Human Head as an Archival Form, photo series, 2025 – 2026

 

 

 

 

 

Marcello Mercado, Dead Code Anatomies, Installation, 1990 – 2025

Dead Code Anatomies is a series of four algorithmic scripts that address the mechanisms by which physical violence is filtered, refracted, and suppressed by systems of procedural representation. Each work is based on a black and white analog photograph taken in 1990 using Kodak Plus-X 125 film. The photographs depict four indigenous individuals from the Qom people of Roque Sáenz Peña, Chaco, Argentina. At the time of the photograph, three of the children were smiling. Their mother, however, refused to be photographed; her image appears blurred due to her movement while hiding.

 

 

 

Marcello Mercado, Data Size (Diptych)
Inkjet on vinyl canvas, 60 × 90 cm (each)
2026

 

 

 

 

 

Marcello Mercado, Chaco III, installation 2021

 

 

 

 

 

Marcello Mercado, kJZAGZGAI, installation 2021

 

 

 

Marcello Mercado, Untitled (Diptych)
Inkjet print on white vinyl canvas, 60 × 90 cm
Collage with fabric remnants, adhesive and paper on canvas, 30 × 40 cm
2026

 

 

 

Marcello Mercado, Untitled
Cast metal and sand, variable dimensions
2024–2026

 

 

 

Marcello Mercado, Amazon
Mixed media on canvas, 80 × 60 cm
2020

 

 

 

DRAWINGS

 

Marcello Mercado, untitled, pencil on paper, 2024

 

 

 

 

 

Marcello Mercado, High Volumes of Post-Post After-After, 2026
1-channel video installation, 3min. loop

 

Links:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DW0LLIUjFBi/

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/DW0gR1slVgN/

 

 

 

 

Large-scale painting conceived as a material system rather than an image. Built through accumulation, abrasion and chromatic pressure, the surface operates as a temporal field in which gesture, chemical interaction and erosion remain visible.

 

 

 

 

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Marcello Mercado, The next and the stranger, object, 2021

 

 

 

Marcello Mercado, Chaco VI: Shelter, sculpture 2021

 

 

 

 

Marcello Mercado, Bestiary for the Minds of the 21st Century, pencil and 3D print on paper, collage, Artist´s book, 2015

 

 

 

Marcello Mercado, Untitled (Triptych)
Inkjet on vinyl canvas, 60 × 90 cm (each)
Permanent marker on vinyl canvas, 60 × 90 cm
2026

 

 

Marcello Mercado, OPEN GENOME ACTIONS, Bio-Performances 2000–2012

Series of bio-performances in which fragments of the artist’s DNA are extracted, dispersed and transmitted across natural and technological environments.
2026

 

 

 

 

Marcello Mercado,COCÓ, Bio-artist´s Book, 2026

Biological remains become visual systems.

The project originates from veterinary photographs of a surgically removed organ and follows its migration through historical image structures, machine learning systems and painterly traditions.

What survives is neither anatomy nor representation, but a transformed organizational residue.

 

 

 

 

Marcello Mercado, Glitches_Diaries of Pure_Desktop, 2012
2-channel video installation, 6min. loop

 

 

 

Link:

 

 

 

 

Marcello Mercado

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Artist’s book, 280 pages

2012

 

Beginning with a hacked digital camera manual, the project transforms a technical document into an abstract visual artifact. Through corruption, fragmentation and algorithmic reconstruction, information is displaced from its instructional function and reconfigured as a system of geometric forms and unstable visual language.

 

 

 

 

 

Marcello Mercado, IMG_2045
Inkjet on vinyl canvas, 60 × 90 cm
2026