Works
Transitory Artifacts, A Journey through Time and Media
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Leonardo Formula, 2026
Leonardo Formula, 2026 Print on canvas, 40 × 100 cm Leonardo Formula presents an equation describing a artwork not as a fixed object, but as the sum of its transformations over time. In this formula, represents the state of a work at a given moment. Its derivative captures change, the norm ensures that opposing variations…
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Das Kapital — Unix Settings / DAT / Containers, 1999–2005
Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln (KHM) · SGI / Unix · Discreet Logic Flame, Flint & Inferno · DAT · 1999–2005 Technical environment These processes were developed at the Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln (KHM) using professional Silicon Graphics (SGI) Unix workstations and Discreet Logic systems, including Flame, Flint, and Inferno. Their compositing and 3D environments made…
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Without Context, 2026
Without Context, 2026 Installation, four UV prints on white PVC mounted on stretchers. Without Context is an installation of four UV prints on white PVC mounted on stretchers, each displaying only one measurement: 23.5 MB, 37.2 KB, 3 GB and 173 qubits. The first three establish an apparently coherent system of digital…
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das KAPITAL – Capital, 1999
DAS KAPITAL – CAPITAL, 1999 Video / video installation, variable duration, color and B/W, stereo Short version presented here: 9’59” Das Kapital began in 1999 with a question: could a text of critique of political economy be transformed or translated into images? The project developed over the following ten years as an open…
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Vor sich / Ahead, 2026
Vor sich existiert zunächst als ein mittels künstlicher Intelligenz erzeugtes Bild: Eine Technologie der Gegenwart imaginiert ein materielles Werk, das mit einer Technologie des 20. Jahrhunderts realisiert ist und seinerseits die Schwierigkeit der Gegenwartskunst befragt, sich auf das einzulassen, was von der Geschichte noch nicht legitimiert worden ist. Die Vergangenheit liegt vor uns; die…
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On the Human Head as an Archival Form, Photography, 2024 – 2025
The series examines the human head as an archival structure, operating at the threshold between representation and material record. While the images retain the frontal conventions of portraiture, they suspend its expressive and identificatory functions. The head is treated as a site of accumulation: organic matter, time, and algorithmic processes converge on its surface…
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The Torment Zone
The Torment Zone (La Region de la Torture) (Die Region der Unruhe) (La Región del Tormento) Color/Mono English subtitles Year of production: 1992 Format: Betacam SP PAL Country of Origin: Argentina Running Time: 8 min. 40 sec. Drawings: Daniel González Animation: Marcello Mercado Chorus: Coro de la…
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The Warm Place
The Warm Place (El Lugar Tibio) is an experimental video by Argentine artist Marcello Mercado. Made from fragments of video, drawings, photographs, sound, text, hand-painted slides, and digital image processing, the piece explores the instability of the body under conditions of historical violence, technological mediation, and failed memory. …
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Das Kapital – Archivo F.X., 2006
Attempts to translate Das Kapital into a moving image have been discussed in relation to Marcello Mercado’s work on the text. Since 1997, his video work has been connected to projects by Sergei Eisenstein, Guy Debord and Alexander Kluge, addressing the issue of representing economic theory…
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The Voices, Notations, 2021
The Voices (2021) can be read as a notation without a prior score. It is not the inscription of an existing sound but rather an attempt to capture the emergence of a voice before language takes hold. The still-visible staff lines no longer organize pitch or duration.…
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ERODE, 2026
ERODE (2025–ongoing) ERODE operates as a sequential system of 20 operational cases. Each case transforms a human trace into algorithmic and biological signals. ERODE translates human memory loss into signal. Drawings produced by Alzheimer’s patients are converted into algorithms, then…
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The Theory of Cultural Compression
Cultural Compression describes the transformation of complex cultural structures into minimal operational traces. The Theory of Cultural Compression Works and Experiments 1995–2025 Marcello Mercado Table of Contents Preface Cultural Compression Chapter I Compression as Method Chapter II Logic as Compost The Gödel Performances Chapter III Music as Glyph SUMMA – Notations Chapter…