Nominated for the Pipa Prize in 2023, Biophillick is an artist who puts technology, nature and spirituality into dialogue. His works permeate multiple forms of artistic expression to materialize a transcendental universe, including handmade masks and electronic music. The artist reclaims traditions to imagine future ancestors.
Biophillick. Petamuti vermelho, 2023. Video performance, 3'. Presented at Sertão International Biennial. Photo: Sziah
Biophillick, ALTAR MÉXICO-BRASILEIRO, 2019. Exhibit/concert ELECTRO-XAMÂNISMOS, at the Memorial of Indigenous Peoples. Photo: Paulo Vianna
C& América Latina (C&AL): Masks and fashion are one striking aspect of your work. How did this inspiration come about and how do you feel when you wear these pieces?
Biophillick: Several peoples in Mexico were already using masks, which are an artifact to connect with the spiritual realm, deities, animals and forces of nature. I learned how to make the first mask there and, here in Brazil, I’ve made almost 20 masks for the exhibition Nahuales – Mystical Beings, at the Instituto Oca Brasil, in Alto Paraíso de Goiás, and at the Memorial of Indigenous Peoples, in Brasília. I represented 20 different animals to bring this idea of the nahuales – metamorphic beings, shamans with the power to turn into animals. It’s like nature’s spirits were asking to be made visible. Fashion as art also allows me more freedom and innovation. And wearing this is something very powerful, it transforms me completely. It’s a form of protection for getting in touch with what’s on the inside and expanding it.
Biophillick, Onçxapanã, 2024. Short film, 3’30”. Performance at Curta 8 Super8 Festival. Photo: Gabriela Titon.
C&AL: And was architecture the starting point on your artistic path?
B: Yes! Before that, I took dance, theater, music and painting classes. But it was architecture where my creativity exploded. My professors used to say that architects need to be inspired by other artistic areas in order to have a wealth of sensitivity. And so I took my conceptual architecture projects to galleries and museums, and collaborated with artists and performers. Let’s move away from this paradigm that architects only build houses, you know?
C&AL: You’ve said that Mexico City holds many universes. How has that city influenced your career?
B: It’s a very broad and rich culture. So, you’re able to see all these contrasts. There are several layers of history, from pre-Hispanic times, to the ruins, and the Aztec remains. Then, the buildings and neighborhoods with more colonial and European architecture. And also the modern and contemporary world. For example, the Zócalo, which is the central part of the city, has all these layers of architecture and cultures coexisting. Near my house, there were traces of a circular pyramid. I went there to draw, meditate and reconnect with nature. And there are many colors and joy. All of this permeates my work, this mixture of both ancestral and contemporary.
Biophillick, Experimental music album cover DEAD EAGLE, 2016.
C&AL: This mixture really stands out in your work. You combine analog and digital elements, bringing ancestral references and a look to the future. How does this combination happen?
B: My final project in architecture school was the city of the future in cinema, a bio-futuristic vision presented in virtual reality with 3D projections. And this is to envision a future in harmony with nature and move away from gray concrete and think about living, self-sustainable materials. When I arrived in Brazil, I discovered the concept of ancestral future, by Ailton Krenak, and it made perfect sense. Indigenous resgate is very strong here in Brazil and this led me to also think about co-creation, not separation, because these times should not be in conflict. A lot of memory was erased, so we need, through imagination, to create precisely these other possible futures to enrich our present. Imagination, as the Mexican writer Octavio Paz said, comes to rescue all this ancestral culture.
Biophillick, BIO GATITO-PÁSSARO, 2022. Outfit unveiled at the Aldeia Marakanà fashion show as part of work by the Éwá Poranga multicultural fashion school. Photo: Mone Noire
A lot of memory was erased, right? So we need, through imagination, to create precisely these other possible futures to enrich our present.
C&AL: In Brazil, you acknowledged your identity as an indigenous person and reclaimed it.
B: Yes, I already felt a connection to my culture in Mexico, but it came to life here in Brazil. There’s an effervescence of indigenous cultures in fashion, art, music, in all sorts of spaces. When I was living in Brasília, I made contact with the Kariri-Xocó people, who live in a reserve called Santuário dos Pajés, and I worked on several Cultura Viva projects to promote their culture. I had my first ayahuasca ceremony with Álvaro Tukano, the former director of the Memorial of Indigenous Peoples. I also studied at the Éwá Poranga fashion school, with its decolonial and Afro-Indigenous perspective. I’d already been using indigenous instruments in my music, and am now mixing that with rituals, with Mexican culture, with various medicine ceremonies… Everything as a spiritual search.
Biophillick is an indigenous-queer Mexican multimedia artist, architect, fashion designer, and experimental electronic musician. Research on ancestry, nature, spirituality, technology and the future. He develops hybrid creations between the analogue-natural and the technological-digital, crossing audiovisual arts, fashion, digital architecture, ritualistic performances, immersive concerts and multimedia exhibitions.
Gabriela Titon a journalist and visual artist, with a special interest in textile art, collage, expressive processes and documentary practices. She is the creator of Nervo Arte, a cultural media platform about contemporary art and its connections, focused on the local scene in Curitiba/PR, Brazil.
Translation: Zoë Perry
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