I don’t know. I believe that it’s life’s biggest question for most humans. It is one of my favourite questions though. On the question what us defines as a species, I would say that humans were created by chance and robots with a purpose. But I may think differently about it tomorrow.

Thank you for the compliment! I really appreciate that. I’m Esmay Wagemans, 26 years old. Born in Jisp (The Netherlands), a small village in the countryside. I’m a sci-fi artist who graduated from the Willem de Kooning Academy in 2017. I have had my own studio in Koog aan de Zaan for a year and a half (feel free to drop by if you’re in the area). I create human-like, sometimes wearable objects based on futuristic theories, questions and stereotypes. I see all my work and objects as one big research and I almost always make my objects out of curiosity.

I actually still add my questions and ideas about censorship to almost all of my free work, only most people just don’t notice it in the first instance. That’s because it’s not emphasized or not even mentioned in the concept at all. But in theory, it is actually more visible in some of my projects than it was with Second Skin. The design of this project was based on Instagram’s guidelines, where they say you can’t show nipples unless it’s a sculpture, which resulted in a wearable sculpture called Second Skin.
Even though the design is just the shape of the breasts and not even naked-looking at all, it got a lot of negative attention and critics – reading and hearing all the reactions felt like a self-fulfilling prophecy. So when I decided to make a copy of myself for my next project, New Humanity, I immediately knew I wanted to involve my upper body to test my audience. If Second Skin was already so shocking to people, my hyper-realistic torso had to be even more extreme.

After all, you could see me much more naked in this project than in the rough flesh-toned latex tops – only this time, I focused on a different concept. The result was very interesting since literally no one said anything regarding the naked part. It felt like New Humanity completed Second Skin. Where I introduced the audience with normalizing the nipple in Second Skin through a statement, I secretly finished it in New Humanity. From this moment on, I decided to keep making naked sculptures to normalize it. Besides that, the female body is also just the most beautiful creation on earth – not in the universe because who knows what’s out there…

Good question. I actually studied Lifestyle Transformation Design, which is a part of the commercial section at our academy. In the last year, you have to choose your minor, and I always knew I wanted to do an autonomous one. I actually first started Digital Craft but it felt like you needed to be an expert in programming, so I changed courses and chose Hacking instead. It was a very open-minded course with loads of freedom and no rules. The teachers were great and helped me to explore and ask myself about my own aesthetic preferences, which resulted in a research about sci-fi.

Now, almost two years later, it feels like I can link all my work-related choices to my interests and influences from when I was a child. I grew up in a family watching Star Wars, with a father fascinated by technology and a brother who wanted to build robots, which probably gave me my interest in the future and technology. Besides that, I was somehow always fascinated by every weird, creepy, mental craziness, human-related things or subjects.
I also watched my first thriller at a very young age. I guess that explains the crave for weirdness in my work. And finally, as a person, I’m always very calm, sensitive and patient, which gives my work the softness it has – according to other people. Those three elements (sci-fi, human curiosity and my own soft-being) blended together are kind of my work, I think.

I see ‘the human’ as a creature of social reality as well as of fiction. This originated during the research for my graduation project, for which I read a book about cyborg theories. In the book, they explained how they see the cyborg as a fictional image that embodies our social and physical reality but also as an imaginative source, which I totally agree with.

To start with, you can create human-like pieces by sculpting from yourself or you can make moulds of existing human parts. I always work with moulds of myself or of other people since I think it’s a really interesting process. Making a mould of someone’s body or face is very intimate and personal and creates an interesting connection. Besides that, I really like the idea of transforming something that’s alive. It gives an object a deeper layer and feels as if something alive is in it.
But let’s get back to the process. So I first make a mould of a body part. Then, I fill it with clay, so I can transform or edit the body part. After that, I make a new mould, cast that with silicone and paint it with loads of different colour layers. In the end, it’s all in the technique, the precision and the patience you have.

Well, it’s interesting that you say that because I just added that to my to-do list last week. I really strive for an all-round website and studio with workshops, videos, a store, a research centre, etc. About the moulding models, I don’t have them. I mostly use moulds of my own body since it still feels like that is the most interesting for my research. But sometimes, I like to use someone different. In that case, I ask people that I know well or I post an open call on Instagram since I don’t really like the idea of choosing people only based on looks.

Well, I do often call my studio ‘my human laboratory’.

Yes, analogue humans in a digital world. I don’t always see or describe humans as analogue since I also often find them to be cyborgs. But I wouldn’t call those kinds of humans digital since that sounds more as if it’s based on a not living creature. But you can probably say digital humans exists, maybe Siri?

I’m not sure about that. I haven’t done much research on that subject yet, but I do read quite often about it since I read everything that passes me and is about robots. I think that, for now, my answer will be that I see them as ‘women created in a tech men’s idealistic world’.

Today, I see the future as a dangerous and joyful playground for possibilities.

Not particularly a fashion-related collection. Not yet. But doing a sci-fi show is definitely something I’m considering. But that’s still too early for now. But I will drop a collection of transparent masks for the online store this spring.

Future Faces.