My practice explores the zones where scientific measurement touches mystery — where the body itself becomes an instrument of observation. Trained in both mechanical engineering and visual arts, I conceive artworks as cosmological infrastructures: autonomous language systems that allow two simultaneous movements — reading scientific data through a sensory lens, or conversely, reading mathematically systems constructed from ordinary elements.
The project I propose for this residency, Cosmological Matrices, takes the human body — with its perceptual structures, its interoceptive signals, its internal technologies — as the primary reference frame for cosmological investigation. Rather than looking outward from Earth toward the universe, I turn the instrument inward. This displacement is rooted in a practice already in dialogue with the scientific community through Cosmologies du Sensible, a transdisciplinary research platform developed with the mentorship of Pierre Cox, former Director of ALMA.
TRACK 1 — Phantom Matrices
Working with collected textile objects — tablecloths, lacework, crocheted fabrics — I work with weaving itself as an encoded procedure for organising information. I apply simple operations — symmetry, mirroring, geometric decoupling — to compose visual cells, printed by dry embossing onto paper. What remains is a relief trace, white on white: the imprint of an absence, visible only under specific light conditions.
These are not finished works but active investigations — intended to be developed at larger scales, on different supports, toward full installations where the phantom structure of the textile becomes an architectural presence.
TRACK 2 — Dark Matrices
Working from data extracted from my own orbital medical scan — a DICOM file containing 2D cross-sections and a navigable 3D object — I subject the imaging of my own eyes to the same operations applied to astrophysical data: mirroring, symmetry, geometric decoupling. The body’s interior — its dark cavities, its interoceptive architecture — rendered visible by medical technology, becomes a cosmological space in its own right.
When mirrored, the scanner cross-sections produce forms evoking nebulae, gravitational field structures, the obscure density of Sagittarius A. The darkness here is not absence — it is matter. These explorations are starting points toward large-scale image-based works and immersive installations, developed in direct dialogue with CoG researchers.*
→ Explore the full practice at danielazuniga.com