In October 2022 Dan Carabas presented his largest artistic work to date, METAMORPHIC SCULPTURES, an immersive art experience featuring analog and digital artworks, to an international audience at the historic Kühlhaus Berlin, a 1,700 m2 space.
Dan Carabas deals with the distortion and transformation of the human body. By means of Shibari (a Japanese art of tying) and by draping fabrics, Carabas creates a paradox: while the ropes restrict the movements of the human body, it is the ropes that give the fabric its own dynamism and three-dimensionality. By deliberately altering the body, the sculptures become dehumanized and appear to the viewer in a trance-like state. This process was captured in photographs as a physical work of art printed on wood, and the random grain of the wood gives each final work its uniqueness.
In addition to the physical artworks, the METAMORPHS – 50 large scale digital artworks were on display. While the physical artworks capture the actual and final moment of transformation, the digital animations illustrate the process of transformation in an abstract and dynamic way.
Each animation consists about 100 images morphing into a unity. Through a combination of photography and animation, these works blur the lines between the physical and the digital, creating a new form of art that transcends traditional boundaries. The bodies in these animations have been manipulated and altered in a variety of ways, from the subtle to the extreme, however each animation still captures the essence of the human form in its originally shaped sculpture, creating a striking visual contrast between the real and the virtual.
The physical works were displayed in the middle of a large space of 1700sqm. A sound emanates from each artwork, and these sounds merge in space to create an abstract, meditative symphony composed by sound artist Peter Hayo.
