Marcello Mercado’s photographic practice transcends conventional notions of photography as mere representation or documentation. For him, it is an unstable process in which algorithmic procedures, artificial intelligence, and bioart methodologies intersect, transforming the image into a site of ongoing recomposition and critical inquiry.

 

His work explores the permeability between organic matter and technological systems. Bodies, objects, and documents become mutable surfaces where algorithms intervene, restructuring and rewriting the image. In this context, photography is not the endpoint of visual capture, but rather a transitional stage in processes of distortion, fragmentation, and reconstruction.

 

Mercado’s images defy expectations of photographic fidelity. Faces are fragmented and recombined, objects become anatomical zones, and surfaces acquire textures reminiscent of erosion and growth. This dissolution of traditional categories extends to his algorithmic books, such as the Das Kapital series, in which photography operates as both an image and a conceptual apparatus that interrogates systems of value, circulation, and reproduction.

 

Through his engagement with bioart and forensic procedures, Mercado further destabilizes the relationship between image and subject. Organic matter, artificial vision, and analytical methods become integral to the construction of photographic works that transcend representation and authorship.

 

Through these experiments, Mercado proposes a critical rethinking of photography in the postdigital era—not as a passive medium of observation but as an active, generative, and analytical practice in which images, data, code, materiality, and biology converge to produce forms of visual knowledge that resist stabilization.

 

This approach positions his work within contemporary debates on the posthuman, the algorithmic governance of images, and the limits of the photographic gaze. His archive is neither documentary nor testimonial. Rather, it is an evolving system that questions the conditions under which images are produced, manipulated, and perceived today.