Karkynia
Interactive Installation (live simulation, aluminium cut-outs), Augmented Reality
2026
Karkynia (Feminae crustacea glitchensis) is a chimeric goddess of human and crab embodiment. Her soft, pale, and many-breasted torso melts into the lower body of a crab, carapace molting into skin and skin into claws. Luminous as wet porcelain, she wears her glitches the way other goddesses wear crowns.
While her name echoes Karkinos, the giant crab Hera sent to distract Heracles in his fight against the Hydra in the swamps of Lerna, Karkynia is not a soldier sent to die in someone else's war but a calming, peaceful, and feminine force, armored yet gentle, strong yet at rest.
In the installation, cut-out aluminium shapes, each an intuitive drawing traced over found images of different crab species, compose the hybrid environment for Karkynia. At its center, she performs her peaceful ritual in the darklands of the in-between waters. Visitors are welcome, but gently. Any sudden movement disturbs her peace, and she answers with gut growls and the claw raps of ghost crabs defending their space.
Karkynia is one element of Menegon's evolving research project Becoming Chimeric. This iteration is both autonomous artwork and foundational fragment, a base element from which future versions will emerge and take form in other works. Glitched and chimeric by nature, she resists fixity and keeps becoming.
Sound design by Alexander Martin
Developed with the support of Artemis Gallery
Alongside the interactive installation, Karkynia exists also as a virtual performative sculpture and in augmented reality, waiting within digital spaces to be summoned at any time, anywhere, in the in-betweens.
me, myself and (a)I
Digital Image (.png), Augmented Reality
2025
experience
In me, myself and (a)I, Martina Menegon trains a machine-learning AI using custom datasets derived from a series of bathtub selfies. Through this process, she generates a series of digital self-portraits - fragmented, algorithmic embodiments that evolve beyond mere replication. The self-portraits exist both as digital images (.png) as well as shimmering, three-dimensional frames, made tangible through Augmented Reality.
The AI training is intentionally left incomplete, allowing for fluid, unpredictable transformations that extend Martina’s ongoing practice of performative glitched self-portraiture that challenge notions of hybrid identity and corporeality.
By translating her physical form into an artificial, shifting self, Martina explores the intimate entanglements between technology and the self-body, dissolving the boundaries between physical and virtual, organic and inorganic, human and machine, self and simulation.
I'm sorry I made you feel that way
Interactive Installation, Virtual Sculpture (.glb), Augmented Reality
2023
“I'm sorry I made you feel that way” is an interactive experience and performative self-portrait exploring new possibilities for empathy and care for our hybrid selves.
Martina Menegon’s biometric data collected daily via a wearable smart ring device is linked with an artificial avatar generated via Machine Learning AI. The physical body state - specifically in connection to stress and tiredness - has an immediate and direct impact on its virtual extension. When physical bodily needs are neglected and fatigue or stress sets in, the AI self-body deteriorates, exhibiting fragmented and abstract behaviour and making interactions increasingly challenging.
In linking very personal biometric data to an AI generated avatar, “I'm sorry I made you feel that way ” draws attention to our hybrid corporeality and how we can foster care both offline and, by extent, online. This intimate and intricate bond creates a new sense of responsibility for our virtual extensions and nurtures a unique emphasis on self-care that extends beyond our physicality.
Developed in collaboration with: Frederik De Bleser, Lieven Menschaert as part of the “The Algorithmic Gaze” research project of Sint Lucas Antwerpen.
Accompanying the physical installation, “I’m sorry I made you feel that way.extended” is an iteration of the interactive installation specifically created for digital, online and hybrid spaces. Screenshots taken from a live performance with the interactive installation are transformed, in collaboration with AI tools, into virtual sculptures with Augmented Reality capabilities.
falling asleep
Interactive Live Simulation (webGl), Performative Virtual Sculpture / Self-Portrait
2023
experience
“falling asleep” is an online interactive and performative virtual self-portrait, a ludic yet introspective journey into the depths of sleeplessness and the artist’s long-lasting struggle with insomnia.
Clones of Martina’s body fall relentlessly and continuously across the webpage and screen space. As they fall, they sometimes find a brief moment of rest when they hit a lonely bed - but are soon thrown back into their free fall. Users can reposition the bed in an attempt to stop the virtual bodies from falling, but ultimately fail. "falling asleep" reflects the unrelenting turmoil of insomnia and the pursuit of sleep, as well as introducing a new form of self-expression and self-representation within hybrid realities.
sound design: Alexander Martinz
I am but an uneven terrain
Digital Image (.jpg), Virtual Sculpture (.glb), Augmented Reality
2023
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Just as a landscape can have different elevations, textures, and colors, the contemporary self can be composed of physical, virtual, and emotional elements that come together to create a unique and complex identity.
Using 3D scanning and the glitch as an artistic medium, Martina's self-portrait I am but an uneven terrain breaks free from the constraints of physical appearance and explore new forms of expression and representation that challenge the traditional boundaries of identity. It becomes a statement on the complex, hybrid and multifaceted nature of the contemporary self: not perfect but rather a constantly evolving and changing terrain.
one last click and I’ll be gone
Interactive Live Simulation, Video, Digital Image (.jpg), Online Virtual Sculpture (.glb), Augmented Reality
2022 - ongoing
collect / experience
“one last click and I’ll be gone” is a series of self-portraits as digital images, videos and Augmented Reality, generated through a custom live simulation that monitors the cursor’s movements and gestures.
At every mouse click, a new clone of Martina Menegon’s digitised body is created. Trapped within the virtual and physical boundaries of the screen, these avatars are forced to follow the cursor’s position while struggling with the physics and limits of the virtual environment and leaving visual traces of their every movement.
Through this algorithmically driven simulation, left running while working in front of the computer, Martina creates a new and unpredictable kind of phygital self-portraiture. Throughout her screen time, the algorithm takes pictures or short movies of the running simulation at random intervals (saved with a timestamp in the title) and resets the virtual canvas. The results are unique impressions of Martina’s virtual selves as well as her physical self mediated and embodied through a cursor or an interface. A self-portraiture that includes the digital, the physical and her intimate relation with computer and screens.
a point of no return
Interactive Live Simulation, Performative Virtual Sculpture (webGl, Desktop only)
2022
collect / experience
An irreversible action, a point beyond control, impossible to stop, unavoidable, unpredictable. In “a point of no return”, a group of glitched digital selfies of the artist is forced, by algorithmic constraints, to continuously and helplessly be together and follow a point in space. Forming a tormentous cloud - whose size is randomly determined at every load - the avatars follow the user’s cursor movements and react at any mouse click as the gravity of the virtual environment would randomly change.
“a point of no return” wants to bring attention to the idea of care for our digital selves within virtual spaces. As the avatars are extremely sensitive to the user’s gestures and cursor’s movement speed, their very perceivable struggle can be almost interrupted if the user is willing to act carefully and delicately.
A temporary and not interactive iteration of “a point of no return” as Augmented Reality sculpture was commissioned by Boris Kostadinov (Scope BLN) for the project Kleiner Gottesgarten, part of the festival ORTSTERMIN in August 2022
artist’s block
Online Virtual Sculpture (.glb), Augmented Reality
2022
collect / experience
“artist’s block” is a self-portrait created by algorithmically stacking 3D scanned avatars that are able to invade space and become tangible through the intractable experience of Augmented Reality. Continuing Martina Menegon's practice of creating glitched and digital self-portraits, “artist’s block” is a tongue-in-cheek play on the current state of her personal and artistic life.
Further extending the self-portrait, Martina Menegon's current body weight is the price for every edition, and there are as many available editions as her age.
not again, not anymore
Virtual Sculpture
2022
visit the exhibition
“not again, not anymore” is a virtual sculpture made of glitched self-portraits performing a moment that could be just before as well as right after a battle. Created as an homage to all the resilient women and a call for keeping strong in the ongoing fights for our bodily autonomy and rights, the composition also express the artist personal journey, struggles and experiences. As we can no longer divide offline and online realities, the fight for the future of our unprotected bodies extends away from keyboard, taking shape and space in the cyberspace.
“not again, not anymore” was commissioned by EPOCH for their urgent and powerful online exhibition as protest “UNPROTECTED” (August 6 – November 4, 2022), featuring works by Nancy Baker Cahill, Carrie Chen, Vitória Cribb, Elana Mann, Martina Menegon, Operator, Sasha Stiles, Hana Yoo. On August 13th, the entirety of the UNPROTECTED exhibition was released as a singular NFT containing a compilation of artworks by participating artists. A portion of the proceeds went to support reproductive justice organizations.
Edition of 5 + 9 AP
untouched
Online Virtual Sculpture (.html), Augmented Reality, Video Installation
2021 - ongoing
experience
“untouched” is a series of self-portraits created through 3D scanning and presented as unaltered online virtual and Augmented Reality sculptures. Motionless yet constantly interacting and performing in-between realities, the virtual fragmented bodies in “untouched” exist as well in the blockchain as editions of NFTs to collect and care for.
Capturing her physical body in movement while scanning, Martina Menegon pushes the practice of selfies and self-portraiture to the limit by performatively and consciously glitching the body, generating new simulated fluid identities as well as new authentic and perceivable avatars. Freeing herself from the limitations and anxieties of the physical corporeality, Martina Menegon uses 3D Scanning as an artistic medium and glitch as an intimate process and extremely personal journey towards a deep understanding of her virtual multiple identities and existence.