Marcello Mercado

  • Marcello Mercado, Curves, compost, forecasts and closures, Performance, 2020

    Marcello Mercado, Curves, compost, forecasts and closures, Performance, 2020

     

     

     

     

     

    Marcello Mercado
    Curves, compost, forecasts and closures
    10´51” color stereo
    Performance
    2020

     

     

     

    https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/429117688

     

  • Marcello Mercado, The green that surrounds you, AI-Book, 2023 Version 2

    Marcello Mercado, The green that surrounds you, AI-Book, 2023 Version 2

     

    Marcello Mercado

    The green that surrounds you

    AI-Book, 268 pages,

    2023

     

    263 ways of looking at Metahumans / 263 formas de ver a los metahumanos / 263 Sichtweisen auf Metamenschen.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • During the storm, Photography, 2020

    During the storm, Photography, 2020

     

     

     

    DURING THE STORM
    Photographs, 2020

     

    These images were produced during a storm using a night-vision camera. Yet the storm functions only as the initial condition of a more complex event. What the series records is the transformation of perception when human vision is displaced by an optical regime foreign to it.

     

    The camera produces another world.

     

    Garden, domestic architecture, water, vegetation, and body are subjected to the same process of visual disintegration. Objects lose stability, distances become uncertain, and forms oscillate between appearance and disappearance. The image ceases to operate as a surface of recognition and becomes instead a field of intensities.

     

    The violent reds, phosphorescent greens, spectral negatives, and electronic grain do not represent the night. They are the visible traces of a device confronting the limits of observation. Photography no longer describes the world; it records the operations required to construct it.

     

    As the series unfolds, the distinction between exterior and interior begins to dissolve. The garden and the house are subjected to the same perceptual instability. Even the photographer’s own body is absorbed into the system of registration: fingers, wounds, fragments of skin, and involuntary movements emerge as evidence of a presence that no longer fully controls the image it produces.

     

    The storm acts as an agent of disorganization—not only upon the landscape, but upon the act of seeing itself. Vision becomes uncertain, tactile, and bodily. Objects cease to exist as stable entities and instead appear as fluctuating concentrations of light within a continuously transforming environment.

     

    These photographs occupy an ambiguous territory between document, physiological experience, and machinic perception. They do not depict what occurred during a stormy night. They reveal the emergence of a world that can only exist when darkness, atmosphere, body, and technology cease to function as separate systems.

     

    What remains is the trace of that instability: an archive of vision at the precise moment it loses the ability to recognize what it sees.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

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  • The First Fifteen: 2000s in Photographs

    The First Fifteen: 2000s in Photographs

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Marcello Mercado

    The First Fifteen: 2000s in Photographs

    Photography

    2018

     

    At the turn of the millennium, photography underwent a profound ontological transformation. Amidst the remnants of analog processes and the accelerating digitization of images, artists found themselves navigating novel regimes of vision, materiality, and mediation.

     

    Marcello Mercado’s The First Fifteen: 2000s in Photographs, is a unique body of work created precisely within this realm of negotiation. The collection showcases fifteen years of meticulous yet exploratory documentary, conceptual, and deeply personal practice. Created by an immigrant in Germany, the photographs capture an extended engagement with objects, surfaces, textures, and systems belonging to a new geography and culture that are simultaneously familiar and foreign.

     

    Mercado’s approach is simultaneously archival and experimental. Using flatbed scanners to animate objects during the scanning process yields a visual language that blends forensic accuracy with distortive temporalities. Coins, roots, plastic packaging, stamps, and remnants of daily life and bureaucratic residue are transformed into unstable images, blurred by movement yet charged with presence. Other images capture domestic spaces, transitional landscapes, obsolete technological equipment, and everyday tablescapes—fragments of life marked by cultural differences, curiosity, and the friction of adaptation.

     

    These are not simply records of things but also records of the act of observing and documenting while in a state of dislocation. The scanner’s mechanical eye traces every wrinkle and defect, translating the material world into luminous grids, glitches, and disjointed surfaces. Mercado uses the scanner as a witness to materiality and as a metaphor for the technological shifts that defined the early 2000s—a period when the photographic image itself became unstable and increasingly entangled with digital processes.

     

    Yet, a quiet intimacy permeates this archive: socks, a kitchen table, a bathroom, and work desks cluttered with aging machines and cables bearing signs of use and obsolescence. Rather than evoking nostalgia, the imagery occupies what contemporary curatorial discourse has described as the post-documentary condition: images that resist the distinction between documentation and construction, evidence and aesthetics.

     

    Mercado’s photographs map the archaeology of daily life and technology during this transitional epoch when identity, labor, memory, and material culture interlace subtly and often fragilely.

     

    The First Fifteen does not offer a linear narrative in its entirety, but rather a layered inventory—a partial and fractured anatomy of the objects, routines, and tools that shaped a life lived between countries, media, and epochs. The work implicitly acknowledges that these «first fifteen years« were not only the opening chapter of a century but also the threshold of a profound recalibration of how we image, record, and experience the world itself.

     

     

     

     

    (Spanish)

     

    Marcello Mercado

    Los primeros quince: la década del 2000 en fotografías

    Fotografías

    1998

     

    Al inicio del nuevo milenio, la fotografía entró en una fase de profunda transformación ontológica. En un contexto marcado por los residuos de los procesos analógicos y la aceleración de la digitalización de la imagen, los artistas se vieron obligados a negociar nuevos regímenes de visión, materialidad y mediación.

     

    The First Fifteen: 2000s in Photographs, de Marcello Mercado, es una obra singular forjada precisamente en este espacio de negociación. La colección reúne quince años de práctica meticulosa y exploratoria, a la vez documental, conceptual e íntima. Creada por un inmigrante en Alemania, esta obra registra un encuentro sostenido con objetos, superficies, texturas y sistemas propios de una nueva geografía y cultura, al mismo tiempo familiares y extraños.

     

    El enfoque de Mercado es archivístico y experimental a la vez. Su uso del escáner plano, mediante el cual anima los objetos durante la digitalización, da lugar a un lenguaje visual que combina precisión forense con temporalidades distorsivas. Monedas, raíces, embalajes de plástico, sellos, residuos de la vida diaria y trazos burocráticos se transforman en imágenes inestables, desdibujadas por el movimiento, pero cargadas de presencia. Otras fotografías muestran espacios domésticos, paisajes en transición, dispositivos tecnológicos obsoletos y escenas cotidianas: fragmentos de una vida marcada por la diferencia cultural, la curiosidad y la fricción de la adaptación.

     

    Estas imágenes no son simples registros de cosas, sino del acto de mirar y registrar desde un estado de desplazamiento. El ojo mecánico del escáner traza cada pliegue y defecto, traduciendo el mundo material en rejillas luminosas, errores y superficies fragmentadas. Mercado utiliza el escáner como testimonio de la materialidad y como metáfora de los cambios tecnológicos que definieron los primeros años del 2000, un período en el que la propia imagen fotográfica se volvió inestable e indeterminada, y cada vez más entrelazada con procesos digitales.

     

    Sin embargo, a lo largo de este archivo se aprecia una intimidad silenciosa: calcetines, una mesa de cocina, un baño, escritorios de trabajo repletos de máquinas envejecidas y cables, texturizados por las huellas del uso y la obsolescencia. La obra elude la nostalgia y se inscribe en lo que el discurso curatorial contemporáneo ha denominado la condición posdocumental: imágenes que resisten la distinción entre documento y construcción, entre evidencia y estética.

     

    Las fotografías de Mercado configuran una arqueología de la vida cotidiana y la tecnología en una época de transición, en la que la identidad, el trabajo, la memoria y la cultura material se entrelazan de manera sutil y, a menudo, frágil.

     

    En conjunto, The First Fifteen no ofrece una narrativa lineal, sino un inventario estratificado: una anatomía parcial y fragmentaria de objetos, rutinas y herramientas que dieron forma a una vida vivida entre países, medios y épocas. La obra reconoce implícitamente que esos «primeros quince años» no solo marcaron la apertura de un siglo, sino también el umbral de una profunda recalibración de cómo imaginamos, registramos y experimentamos el mundo.

     

     

     

     

     

    (German)

    Marcello Mercado

    Die ersten Fünfzehn: Die 2000er in Fotografien

    Fotografie

    1998

     

     

    Zu Beginn des neuen Jahrtausends trat die Fotografie in eine Phase tiefgreifender ontologischer Transformation ein. Zwischen den Überresten analoger Verfahren und der beschleunigten Digitalisierung des Bildes mussten Künstler neue Regime des Sehens, der Materialität und der Medialität aushandeln.

     

    Marcello Mercados „The First Fifteen: 2000s in Photographs” ist ein einzigartiger Werkkomplex, der genau in diesem Verhandlungsraum entstanden ist. Die Sammlung umfasst fünfzehn Jahre akribischer und zugleich explorativer Praxis – dokumentarisch, konzeptuell und zutiefst intim. Als Migrant in Deutschland entstanden, dokumentiert diese Arbeit eine anhaltende Auseinandersetzung mit Objekten, Oberflächen, Texturen und Systemen einer neuen Geografie und Kultur, die zugleich vertraut und fremd sind.

     

    Mercados Ansatz ist gleichermaßen archivarisch und experimentell. Durch den Einsatz eines Flachbettscanners, bei dem die Objekte während des Scanvorgangs bewegt werden, schafft er eine Bildsprache, die forensische Präzision mit verzerrten Temporalitäten verbindet. Münzen, Wurzeln, Plastiktüten, Stempel, Überreste des Alltags und bürokratische Spuren verwandeln sich in instabile Bilder, die von Bewegungsunschärfe geprägt sind und dennoch voller Präsenz sind. Andere Fotografien zeigen häusliche Räume, Übergangslandschaften, veraltete technische Geräte und alltägliche Szenen – Fragmente eines Lebens, das von kultureller Differenz, Neugier und dem Widerstand gegen Anpassung geprägt ist.

     

    Diese Bilder sind nicht nur Dokumentationen von Dingen, sondern auch Aufzeichnungen des Sehens und Registrierens aus einem Zustand des Fremdseins heraus. Das mechanische Auge des Scanners erfasst jede Falte und jedes Detail und übersetzt die materielle Welt in leuchtende Raster, Störungen und fragmentierte Oberflächen. Mercado setzt den Scanner sowohl als Zeugen der Materialität als auch als Metapher für die technologischen Umbrüche ein, die die frühen 2000er-Jahre prägten – eine Zeit, in der das fotografische Bild selbst instabil, unbestimmt und zunehmend mit digitalen Prozessen verflochten war.

     

    Doch durch dieses Archiv zieht sich eine stille Intimität: Socken, ein Küchentisch, ein Badezimmer, Arbeitsplätze voller gealterter Geräte und Kabel, durchzogen von Spuren des Gebrauchs und der Obsoleszenz. Mercados Werk verweigert sich der Nostalgie und bewegt sich in jenem Raum, den die zeitgenössische kuratorische Debatte als postdokumentarische Bedingung beschreibt. Es sind Bilder, die sich einer Auflösung zwischen Dokument und Konstruktion, zwischen Evidenz und Ästhetik entziehen.

     

    Mercados Fotografien kartieren eine Archäologie des Alltags und der Technologie in einer Übergangszeit, in der Identität, Arbeit, Erinnerung und materielle Kultur auf subtile und oft fragile Weise miteinander verflochten sind.

     

    In ihrer Gesamtheit bietet „The First Fifteen” keine lineare Erzählung, sondern ein vielschichtiges Inventar – eine partielle und fragmentierte Anatomie von Objekten, Routinen und Werkzeugen, die ein Leben zwischen Ländern, Medien und Epochen formten. Die Arbeit erkennt implizit an, dass diese „ersten fünfzehn Jahre” nicht nur der Auftakt eines neuen Jahrhunderts waren, sondern auch die Schwelle zu einer fundamentalen Neubewertung dessen, wie wir die Welt selbst abbilden, registrieren und erfahren.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Marcello Mercado, bacterialcompositionsmusicalnotations – Part II, Notations, 2023

    Marcello Mercado, bacterialcompositionsmusicalnotations – Part II, Notations, 2023

     

     

    Marcello Mercado

    bacterialcompositionsmusicalnotations – Part II

    Notations

    2023

     

     

     

  • Marcello Mercado, VR Painting – Still VR Film, 2023

    Marcello Mercado, VR Painting – Still VR Film, 2023

     

     

    Marcello Mercado

    VR Painting – Still VR Film

    2023

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Variations Van Gogh, Installation

    Variations Van Gogh, Installation

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Marcello Mercado

    Variations Van Gogh
    multi-channel installation systems
    7-channel video installation, drawings, books, photography, sound sculpture, DNA – objects
    6 m x 2,50 m  236.2 in x 98.4 in
    2012–2015 / ongoing (updated 2026)

     

     

    Grant for Media Art 2013 of the Foundation of Lower Saxony
    at the Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art,
    Oldenburg, Germany

    The artwork is no longer the object.
    It persists as an archival structure under conditions of loss.

    Sunflowers: Loss and Dispersal

     

     

    Between 1888 and 1889, Vincent van Gogh painted a series of seven sunflowers in Arles.

    Conceived as a set, these works rely on repetition and variation rather than singularity.

     

    The series no longer exists in its entirety.

     

    One of the paintings was destroyed during World War II. The remaining works are dispersed across multiple institutions and collections.

    Their material conditions have diverged over time due to restoration, environmental exposure, and pigment instability, particularly within the yellow spectrum.

     

    The series persists, but not as a unified object.

     

    It now exists as a distributed configuration of paintings, reproductions, records, and transformations. Its continuity is now systemic rather than material.

     

    The series‘ unity is not inherent.

     

    Rather, it is reconstructed through operations.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Sunflowers as a Persistence System

     

    This project addresses painting not as an object, but as a system of persistence.

     

    Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers no longer exist solely as material entities—pigment, canvas, and surface—but as distributed formations sustained by a network of records, including photographic reproductions, exhibition histories, chemical analyses, digitizations, compressions, errors, and algorithmic translations. Their continuity is now guaranteed by circulation, not conservation.

     

    The project shifts the problem of preservation from the artwork to its infrastructure.

     

    Across its variations, the project establishes operational conditions that allow an image to persist without requiring fidelity to an original state. Each instance—be it a drawing, archive, dataset, compressed file, robotic trace, or installation—does not reproduce the image but rather reactivate it under specific constraints. The sunflower becomes a variable entity, a structure defined by chromatic distributions, repetition logics, degradation patterns, and margins of uncertainty.

     

    Loss is not treated as damage to be repaired but as a structural parameter.

     

    Degradation, compression, and distortion are integrated into the system as active components. The archive is no longer a stable repository of memory but rather a field of operations in which images are continuously reconfigured. What persists are the conditions that allow for its re-emergence, not the form itself.

     

    Within this framework, authorship is displaced.

     

    The project introduces algorithmic and semi-autonomous processes, such as robotic drawing systems, data selection protocols, and curatorial engines, that determine which elements are retained, which may vary, and how absence is managed. The artist’s role shifts from production to designing conditions. The role of the curator is redefined as an active agent within the system.

     

    The sunflower is not reconstructed. It is parameterized.

     

    The project operates through a series of transformations:

     

    1) Manual painting extended into serial variation.

    2) Mechanical drawing enacted by semi-autonomous devices.

    3) Archival condensation into minimal digital formats.

    4) Circulation through external platforms and networked visibility.

    5) Mathematical abstraction of production and exchange.

    6) Spatial distribution across multi-channel installation systems.

     

    Each transformation produces a new state. None is definitive.

     

    The inclusion of low-resolution images, compressed files, social media circulation, and secondary documentation functions not as commentary but as material. These elements constitute the work’s effective reality within contemporary image economies. The distinction between original and derivative collapses into a continuum of operational states.

     

    Persistence replaces authenticity.

     

    In this system, a painting survives not by remaining intact but by remaining active within a network of transformations. The work becomes a protocol, a set of conditions that can be executed across different media, scales, and temporalities.

     

    The installation format extends this logic spatially.

     

    Multiple unsynchronized channels distribute the work across a non-hierarchical field where no single image holds primacy. Rather than encountering a central object, the viewer navigates a system in which images appear as temporary stabilizations within a continuous flow of data.

     

    Catastrophe—fire, disappearance, or material loss—is no longer an endpoint.

     

    Rather, it becomes a transition within the system.

     

    The destruction of an object does not terminate a work; rather, it redefines its mode of existence. What persists is not the painting itself, but rather its ability to be reinstantiated under changing conditions.

    Van Gogh Variations does not preserve an image.

     

    Rather, it defines the parameters under which an image can continue to exist after its disappearance.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    ARCHIVE – INSTALLATION

    Variations Van Gogh (2014) is a multi-component installation comprising objects, books, and a seven-channel video and sound system.

    It is presented on seven LCD flat panels mounted on shelves or projected asynchronously onto seven walls within a dark, carpeted space. The installation runs continuously in an eight-minute loop and is accompanied by amplified stereo sound.

     

    Each channel operates independently, creating temporal differences between the images and sounds. Rather than presenting a unified sequence, the installation presents a distributed field of simultaneous processes

    fig.00.Kunsthalle Osnabrück, European Media Art Festival, 2015

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    PERFORMANCE

    A. Concept:

     

    This project explores the operational transformation of archival systems within contemporary media environments. Rather than viewing the archive as a stable repository, it is approached as a process of continuous ingestion, transformation, and reconfiguration of information.

     

    Instead of preserving discrete objects, the system processes visual, chromatic, and biological data across the following states: image, code, residue, and material substrate. These states are not hierarchical. They operate as interchangeable conditions within a distributed system.

     

    The project establishes a medial circulation in which data is extracted, translated, degraded, and reintroduced into new material configurations. Information is not stabilized. It is continuously transformed.

     

    Keywords:

    Database, transduction, transformation, media processing, digital-organic systems, organic-digital systems, the image as an operational unit, recontextualization, performance, human-machine interaction, monitoring, projection, sound, acoustics, data processing, and preservation systems.

     

     

     

    B. General Description:

     

     

    This project investigates procedural strategies for continuing an image system associated with Vincent van Gogh’s sunflower paintings.

     

    The project does not aim to reconstruct or document the paintings. Instead, it activates a set of technological processes that operate on their distributed traces.

     

    These processes include:

     

    – Data acquisition through aerial scanning and remote sensing systems

    – Topological mapping and orthophotographic reconstruction

    – DNA extraction and biologically mediated processes

    – Google Earth as a spatial interface for data positioning

    – Code as a structural writing system

    – Three-dimensional sound environments

    – 3D printing as material translation

    – Robot-generated drawing and notation systems

     

    Each process produces a transformation rather than a representation. The image is not preserved; it is reprocessed.

     

     

     

    C. Archival variation: Hexadecimal Compost

     

    In one iteration of the project, the yellow tones in Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings are digitally sampled using a color extraction process. Each tonal value is then converted into a hexadecimal RGB code, transforming the pigment into numerical data.

     

    Then, approximately 280 distinct values are printed, physically fragmented, and introduced into a composting system with Californian red worms.

     

    The resulting material, an accumulation of decomposed paper and organic residue, functions as a substrate for growing new sunflower plants.

     

    This process creates a closed transformation cycle.

    pigment → data → fragmentation → decomposition → biological substrate → growth.

     

    No stage restores the original image. Each stage produces a new condition.

    D. Installation Scheme:

     

    The installation is structured as a distributed system.

     

    Seven asynchronous channels—screens or projections—are arranged without a central hierarchy. Each channel operates independently, creating temporal disjunctions between the visual and sonic elements.

     

    Sound is spatialized and amplified, extending the system beyond the visual field. The environment is intentionally unstable and not synchronized.

     

    Rather than accessing a single image, the viewer navigates a field of simultaneous transformations.

     

     

     

    E. Description:

     

     

     

    1. Archive Variation:Hexadecimal compost

     

    The yellow tones from Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings are extracted using a digital color sampling process in Photoshop. Each chromatic instance is transcribed as a hexadecimal (RGB) value, thereby translating pigment into numerical data. These values are then printed, shredded, and introduced into a composting system mediated by Californian red worms.

     

    The resulting material, an accumulation of decomposed paper and organic residue, functions as a substrate for planting new sunflower seeds. This establishes a transformation sequence in which color becomes data, data becomes material, and material supports biological growth.

     

    By converting pigment into code, code into fragmented matter, and matter into a biological substrate, the work operates on archival structures. The painting’s history is not preserved as a stable form, but rather decomposed and redistributed across material, computational, and biological states.

     

     

     

    fig.01. Hexadecimal Compost: The Pipette, the Palette, and the Decomposition of Colour

    fig.02. Hexadecimal codification of chromatic data (RGB values)

    fig.03. The approximately 280 extracted yellow tones were materialized as printed swatches on paper,

                   subsequently shredded and subjected to a composting process mediated by worms.

    fig.04. Hexadecimal compost

    Fig. 05. Sunflower seeds, hexadecimal compost, and algorithmically reconstituted sunflowers

     

     

     

     

    Fig. 06. Final installation: Object 1 — copper box 01 containing DNA preserved in test tubes and sunflower samples

     

     

     

     

    Fig. 07. Final installation: Object 2 — copper box 02 containing six packets of  hexadecimal compost

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    2. Archive Variation: Extraction of DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid)

     

     

    The DNA of the cultivated sunflowers was meticulously extracted through enzymatic protocols, each enzymatic sequence facilitating the dissolution of vegetal structures, allowing genetic material to be isolated and collected in test tubes—transforming the biological trace into an archival specimen at the intersection of organic life and media process.

     

    fig.08. Extraction of sunflowers´DNA

     

     

     

     

     

    3. Archive Variation: DNA Extraction (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) (DNA Performance)

     

     

    The DNA of the cultivated sunflowers is extracted through enzymatic protocols. Each step facilitates the breakdown of plant tissue, allowing genetic material to be isolated and collected in test tubes.

    The extracted DNA is preserved as a material record within the system, positioned between biological substrate and media process.

     

     

    fig. 09. Biocuration: DNA Performance, Kassel, 2012 (basement, first floor, second floor)

     

     

     

     

     

    4.  Archival Variation: Satellite

     

    The seven sunflower images are algorithmically transcribed into textual data and transmitted via satellite into outer space.

    In this variation, the paintings are converted into text-based information and displaced from the pictorial domain to an orbital transmission system. The images are no longer maintained as visual entities; they are reformulated as data streams.

    This operation establishes a condition in which archival material is processed through transmission rather than storage. The work does not preserve the image; it redistributes it across a non-terrestrial communication infrastructure.

    The project references NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, which included a public call (#WeTheExplorers) inviting global participants to submit images and data to be embedded in a digital archive aboard the spacecraft. This context situates the work within existing frameworks of planetary-scale data circulation.

    Within this variation, Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings are treated as elements of a speculative archive. Their visual form is converted into textual information and transmitted beyond Earth’s atmosphere, extending the system into a non-local domain.

     

    fig. 09. Variation Satellite

    fig. 10. Variation Satellite

     

     

     

    fig. 11. Variation Satellite

     

     

     

    fig. 12. Variation Satellite

     

     

     

    fig. 13. Variation Satellite

     

     

     

    fig. 14. Variation Satellite

     

     

     

    fig. 15. Variation Satellite

     

     

     

    fig. 16. Variation Satellite

     

     

    5. Archive Variation: Searching the yellow colour

     

     

    Data was acquired through aerial scanning, topological mapping, and orthophotography.

    This project phase was carried out in collaboration with Skyvision Unmanned Aviation, which handled planning and logistics, and Azimuth Geodetic, which handled data post-processing.

    Site: Soest, the Netherlands

    Coordinates: 52°9’14.63«N, 5°17’47.07«E

    Hardware: Two drones (one hexacopter and one octocopter).

    Software: GPS navigation systems, GIS software, Azimuth proprietary processing software, and Autodesk 3ds Max for 3D modeling and visualization.

     

    In this variation, aerial data acquisition is used to identify and extract chromatic distributions associated with sunflower fields. The landscape is processed as a dataset, where color is not observed but measured, mapped, and translated into spatial and computational coordinates.

    The resulting data does not reconstruct an image. It produces a topological model in which chromatic information is distributed across a mapped terrain.

    fig. 17. This part of the project was realizefig.10.Soest, The Netherlands: Work zone

     

     

    The objective of this variation was the conservation and storage—for future generations of artists—of the Dutch yellow tonalities as they might have been perceived by Van Gogh himself.

    Two drones conducted aerial surveys over an area of approximately 20 hectares near Soest, The Netherlands, collecting nearly one terabyte of ortho-photographic data to construct a comprehensive 3D mapping project.

    This endeavor was not solely concerned with capturing yellow hues; it encompassed a broader attention to color saturation, luminosity values, vibrational qualities, and chromatic contrasts within the total environment—trees, soil, water, reflective surfaces—situating Van Gogh’s palette in an ecological and atmospheric context.

    The drones were programmed to associate specific altitudes with precise hexadecimal values corresponding to Van Gogh’s sunflower palette, effectively scanning and filtering the yellow tones vertically:

    Example correlation:

    • 10 cm → #8B8B00

    • 20 cm → #EEEE00

    • 30 cm → #FFD700

    • etc.

     

    The fusion of ortho-photography and topographical mapping yielded a 3D archival model—a digital topography of yellow tonalities—serving as both an artistic artifact and a speculative repository.

    The accompanying soundscape consisted of a synthetic voice systematically reciting the 280 hexadecimal codes derived from Van Gogh’s sunflowers, transforming numerical color data into an acoustic register.

    Example: “Number sign eight B eight B zero zero” (where “number sign” denotes the symbol #, also known in German as Doppelkreuz or Raute).

    The resulting digital model was preserved as a “Van Gogh Perceptive File”, an archival construct designed to be retrievable in scenarios of environmental degradation, climate change, planetary catastrophe, or profound alterations in the qualities of light itself—a poetic gesture toward future conditions of perception.

     

    fig.18. Soest, The Netherlands: Work zone: Drones view

     

     

     

     

     

     

    fig.19. 3D Model and mapping

     

     

     

     

     

     

    fig.20.  3D Model and mapping

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    fig.21. 3D Model and mapping

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    fig.22. 3D Model and mapping

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    6. Archive Variation: Virtual tour of the cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise, France (Google-Earth Interface-Performance)

     

     

    Virtual navigation of the cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise using the Google Earth interface.

    Access is restricted.


    A boundary condition is encountered.

    The system produces anomalies:

    – Incomplete visual data
    – Interface interruptions
    – Automated notifications (“user not updated”)
    – Repetition of the name “Van Gogh” across mapped locations

    The image is not accessed directly.
    It is mediated through interface constraints and data gaps.

    Sound is generated through the conversion of chromatic data into text and synthetic voice.

    Archive Method: Interface traversal

    fig. 23,24, 25. Van Gogh’s grave. Auvers-sur-Oise, Francefig.19.Van Gogh’s grave. Auvers-sur-Oise, France

    fig.20.Google street glitches

     

     

     

     

     

     

    7. Archive Variation: Conversion to Sound and 3D Print

     

     

     

    Seven images of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers are processed through sonogram software and converted into sound data.

    Image → sound.

    No visual output is maintained.
    The work operates as an acoustic archive.

    Archive Method: Sonographic translation

     

     

     

     

     

     

    fig.26. Software: Virtual ANS: A Software simulator of Synthesizer ANS

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    B. The seven sound archives were combined and transformed into a single 3D object in real time, translating sonic information into spatial form.

     

     

     

     

    C. The resulting 3D object was materialized as a physical artifact, produced in plastic using 3D printing technology.

     

     

     

    fig.27. 3D-Sound-Object printed on plastic

     

     

     

     

     

    D.

     Sunflowers images were transformed into sound and subsequently reconstituted as new images, completing a cycle of translation between visual and acoustic forms.

     

     

     

     

     

    fig.28.Sunflowers images were transformed into sound and subsequently reconstituted as new images, completing a cycle of translation between visual and acoustic forms.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    fig.29.Final installation: Object 3, a copper box containing a 3D sound object accompanied by three sound-glitch photographs.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    8. Archive Variation: Notations

     

     

    Musical notations generated by robots and inscribed onto staff paper.

    Graphic scores produced through automated processes.
    Mechanical inscription replaces manual writing.

    Title: The Variations Van Gogh Opera
    Publication: Van Gogh Variations: Compositions for Small Motors and Robots (2014)
    82 pages, 20.5 × 25.5 cm, 500 g

    Archive Method: Automated inscription

    fig.30. “Van Gogh Variations: Compositions for small Motors and Robots”,
    82 pages, 20,5 cm x 25,5 cm, 500g, 2014

    fig.31. “Notations – Van Gogh Variations: Compositions for small Motors and Robots”, 2014

     

     

     

     

    [+]                       [+]

     

     

     

     

    Parts of The Variations Van Gogh Opera:

    01.Das Gelb in der Ferne. Larghissimo
(01. The yellow in the distance)
    02.Ich sehe Zeichnungen. Andante
(02. I see drawings)
    03.Charles Bargue und Jean-Léon Gérôme Duett. Appassionato
(03. Charles Bargue and Jean-Léon Gérôme Duet)
    04.Arie der Besucher. Agitato
(04. Aria of the visitor)
    05.Vincent Monolog. Pesante
(05. Vincent monologue)
    06.Abschied von Arles. Lacrimoso
(06.Farewell to Arles)
    07.Todesmotiv. Lento
(07.Death motif)
    08.Finalterzett. Trionfante
(08.Final trio)
    09. Archive Variation: Language – Code

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    9. Archive Variation: Language – Code

     

     

    The seven Sunflowers paintings are transformed into text and translated into an invented language.

    Alphabetic conventions are suspended.
    The system operates outside standard encoding structures.

    The output is not readable.
    It persists as a residual code state.

    Archive Method: Non-standard encoding

     

     

     

     

     

     

    fig.32, 33. “Seven sunflowers deleted”, 60 pages, 25,5 cm x 20,5 cm, 500g, 2014

     

     

    [+]                [+]

     

     

     

     

     

     

    10. Archive Variation: Van Gogh’s Sunflowers – 115 Variations

     

     

     

    Book containing 115 hand-painted variations in acrylic, ink, and oil, derived from the seven Sunflowers paintings.

    No stable image is maintained.
    The sequence accumulates through repetition.

    Archive Method: Scriptorium

     

     

     

    fig.34.“Van Gogh´sunflowers: 115 Variations”, hand painted, 115 pages, 54 cm x 39 cm x 3 cm (1,08 m open), 900g,
                    unique item, acrylic, oil, ink, pigment and paint on paper, On the reverse signed and dated , 2014

    fig.35.“Van Gogh´sunflowers: 115 Variations”, hand painted, 115 pages, 54 cm x 39 cm x 3 cm (1,08 m open), 900g,
    unique item, acrylic, oil, ink, pigment and paint on paper, On the reverse signed and dated , 2014

    fig.36.“Van Gogh´sunflowers: 115 Variations”, hand painted, 115 pages, 54 cm x 39 cm x 3 cm (1,08 m open), 900g,
    unique item, acrylic, oil, ink, pigment and paint on paper, On the reverse signed and dated , 2014

    fig.37.“Van Gogh´sunflowers: 115 Variations”, hand painted, 115 pages, 54 cm x 39 cm x 3 cm (1,08 m open), 900g,
    unique item, acrylic, oil, ink, pigment and paint on paper, On the reverse signed and dated , 2014

    fig.38.“Van Gogh´sunflowers: 115 Variations”, hand painted, 115 pages, 54 cm x 39 cm x 3 cm (1,08 m open), 900g,
    unique item, acrylic, oil, ink, pigment and paint on paper, On the reverse signed and dated , 2014

    11. Archive Variation: Drawings

    Three sunflowers are drawn by six robots using small motors.


    The process is semi-autonomous.

    No stable form is maintained.


    The drawing operates as a trace generated by mechanical repetition.

    Archive Method: Semi-autonomous robotic drawing

    fig.39.Sunflower 01
    behind glass with 2 cm wide wooden frame, 75 cm x 65.5 cm x 4 cm, pencil on paper,
    unique item, signed and dated on the front, 2014

    fig.40.Sunflower 02
    behind glass with 2 cm wide wooden frame, 75 cm x 65.5 cm x 4 cm, pencil on paper,
    unique item, signed and dated on the front, 2014

    fig.41.Sunflower 03
    behind glass with 2 cm wide wooden frame, 75 cm x 65.5 cm x 4 cm, pencil on paper,
    unique item, signed and dated on the front, 2014

     

    fig.42. Final Installation: 3 Sunflowers: Drawings

    12. Archive Variation: Diary

     

     

    A book recording the project process and its variations.

    The sequence is not stabilized.
    The archive remains open.

    Archive Method: Process log

    fig.43.“Variations Van Gogh : Diary”, 34 pages, 12 cm x 16 cm x 0,8 cm (20 cm open), 150g,
    unique item, On the reverse signed and dated , 2014

    13. Meeting Variation

     


    In 1995, Theo van Gogh and Marcello Mercado were both included in the program of the FIPA Festival (Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels) in Nice, France. Theo van Gogh presented De Wanhoop van de Sirene; Mercado presented La región del tormento. A brief encounter took place.

    This variation introduces a discontinuous relation between the name “Van Gogh” and the project. The connection is not genealogical. It is nominal, temporal, and contingent.

    The event remains as a minimal record within the system.

    fig.44. Meeting Variation

    fig.45. Meeting Variation

    fig.46. Meeting Variation

    fig.47. Meeting Variation

    14. Facebook Likes Variation

    In recent years, I have “liked” paintings by Lieuwe van Gogh on Facebook. Lieuwe is the great-great-grandson of Theo van Gogh, Vincent’s younger brother.

    The action is minimal. It does not produce an image or a material transformation. It registers a trace within a platform-based system.

    The relation is mediated by naming and interface.


    The work circulates as visibility

    fig.48. Facebook Variation

     

     

     

     

     

    15. PDF Variation

     

     

    Creation of a PDF document compiling the curriculum vitae of Vincent van Gogh.

    File size: 61 KB.

    The work is reduced to a minimal digital record.

    The archive is defined by its weight.

     

    fig.49. PDF Variation

    16. Formula Van Gogh Variation

     

    800+ paintings


    1 sale

    Production ≠ transaction

    The archive exceeds the economy.

    Archive Method: Economic discontinuity

    Van Gogh’s anomaly—big production, minimal transactions—makes him uniquely suited to symbolize a “failure archive”: an accumulation of cultural output that exists almost entirely outside the artist’s lifetime economy, yet inside the collective imagination.

    fig.50. Formula

    17. Variation: Meeting the Sunflower

     

     

     

    I visited the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich and stood before Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers (Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers) (1888), temporarily on display from the collection of the Neue Pinakothek.

    The encounter does not produce a new image.
    It establishes a reference point within the system.

    Sunflower Preservation Protocol v1.0

    # Input: distributed records of the painting
    # (images, scans, color samples, descriptions, reproductions)

    def sunflower_protocol(archive):

    chromatic_field = extract_yellows(archive)
    structural_logic = detect_flower_distribution(archive)

    degradation_model = simulate_loss(
    color_shift=True,
    data_noise=True,
    fragmentation=True
    )

    uncertainty = allow_variation(threshold=»non-identical»)

    instance = generate_image(
    chromatic_field,
    structural_logic,
    degradation_model,
    uncertainty
    )

    return instance

    # Rule:
    # The output is not a reconstruction.
    # It is a valid continuation of the work.

     

     

     

    fig.51.Photograph taken at the Pinakothek der Moderne (temporary display, collection of the Neue Pinakothek):
    Sunflowers (Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers), Vincent van Gogh, 1888.

    D. Installation Scheme

     

     

     

    Variations Van Gogh (2014)
    7-channel video and sound installation, color
    Duration: 8 minutes (loop)

    Display options:

    – Seven LCD flat panels mounted on a shelf
    – or projected onto seven walls in a dark, carpeted room

    Channels are unsynchronized.
    Amplified stereo sound.
    Continuous loop.

    A. Installation Scheme – Version 01

    7-channel video installation (screens or monitors)

    – 7 LED monitors, Full HD, 16:9, 46″
    – 7 headphones
    – 7 DVD players or equivalent playback devices

    Environment:

    – White walls

    fig.52. Installation Scheme
  • Marcello Mercado, Jumping – Drawing, Performance, 2002

    Marcello Mercado, Jumping – Drawing, Performance, 2002

     

     

     

     

     

    Marcello Mercado

    Jumping – Drawing

    Performance

    2002

    Denmark

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Marcello Mercado, Hydantoin-derivative-Ich muß…, 1996

     

     

     

     

    Marcello Mercado

    Hydantoin-derivative-Ich muß…

    4´color stereo

    1996

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Marcello Mercado, The information about humans, Performance, 2004

    Marcello Mercado, The information about humans, Performance, 2004

     

     

     

     

     

    Marcello Mercado

    The information about humans

    Performance – Denmatk

    2004

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Human Genome re-Activation – Low Lives 3 International Festival of Live Networked Performances, 2011

    Human Genome re-Activation – Low Lives 3 International Festival of Live Networked Performances, 2011

     

     

     

    Marcello Mercado
    Human Genome re-Activation
    Performance Streaming: Low Lives 3 International Festival of Live Networked Performances
    5´27″
    mono 4:3     colour

    2011

     

    30.04.2011
    Buenos Aires 16:11h, Los Angeles 12:11h,
    Berlin 21:11h, Cape Town 21:11h,
    Salt Lake City 13:11h, Miami 15:11h

     

    keywords:
    bioart, genome, finger, soundart, genetics, synthetic voice,
    DNA – Sequence alignment, chromosome 1, DNA, Nucleotides,
    adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), thymine (T), DNA-Bases

     

     

     

    In 2011, as part of the real-time performance festival Low Lives 3, Marcello Mercado presented Human Genome Re-Activation, a live-streamed procedural work exploring the convergence of human biology, sonic information, and technological mediation.

    The point of departure was an early corporeal trauma: the loss of the artist’s right-hand little finger at the age of eight. Embracing a strictly processual methodology, the performance sought to stimulate latent regenerative knowledge encoded within the human genome. DNA fragments were translated into sound frequencies, while an artificial voice recited selected genomic sequences aloud, producing an acoustic field aimed at activating dormant biological memory.

    Drawing upon Siegfried Zielinski’s variantology—a theory of alternative technological genealogies—Human Genome Re-Activation treated the genome as a primordial archive, a deep technological substrate available for contemporary experimental reading. Rather than constructing symbolic meaning or narrative resolution, the work operated as a live laboratory, where media archaeology and speculative biotechnology intersected in real time.

    The artificial voice’s recitation transformed the informational material of the genome into vibrational events, expanding the body’s perceptual field beyond the purely tactile. In doing so, the performance displaced traditional notions of embodiment, situating the body within a continuum of sonic, biological, and computational agencies.

    Far from proposing an image of figurative regeneration, Human Genome Re-Activation created a material and procedural condition: a space for investigating the body’s possible responsiveness to acoustic fields of information. The live-streaming medium—integral to the work’s realization—amplified this experiment by dissolving spatial boundaries, dispersing the vibratory intervention across decentralized receivers while maintaining an intense immediacy between transmission and corporeal reception.

    Without projecting utopian promises or restorative fantasies, Human Genome Re-Activation constructed a model of speculative regeneration: an experimental archaeology of biological loss, mediated through the hybrid entanglement of obsolete and contemporary communication systems.

     

    .

     

    https://vimeo.com/29938829

     

     

     

     

    1.

    Siegfried Zielinski — Deep Time of the Media

    «Technology is not a linear progression but a constellation of missed possibilities, alternative paths, and latent potentials waiting to be reactivated.»
    (Deep Time of the Media, 2006)

    2.

    Jens Hauser — Art, Biology and Politics (essay)

    «Bioart does not symbolize life processes: it intervenes in them, manipulates, and actualizes their potential as living, dynamic systems.»
    (in Art and Biotechnologies, 2007)

    3.

    Bruno Latour — An Inquiry into Modes of Existence

    «Modernity has always misunderstood its hybrids: it has tried to cleanse what was inevitably composite.»
    (An Inquiry into Modes of Existence, 2012)

    4.

    Amelia Jones — Body Art: Performing the Subject

    «Performance art refuses the closure of representation. It opens the body as an unstable, permeable site for the enactment of process and becoming.»
    (Body Art, 1998)

     

    5.

    Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev — The Brain and the Algorithm

    «When machines speak for us, they do not replace human presence; they alter the modalities of embodiment and distribution of knowledge.»
    (Documenta 13 Catalogue, 2012)

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Marcello Mercado and Sebastian Sánchez Zelada, A Vanishing Quantity in the mathematical sense, Performance, 1999

    Marcello Mercado and Sebastian Sánchez Zelada, A Vanishing Quantity in the mathematical sense, Performance, 1999

     

     

     

    Marcello Mercado and Sebastian Sánchez Zelada

    A Vanishing Quantity in the mathematical sense

    12´colour stereo

    Performance, Köln

    1999