Aniya Bell
Remainings..., 2026
pastels and markers
14 x 11 x 1 in
$0
This body of work explores a post-human landscape where every human instinct—overgrown ruins, dead currency, and dormant technology—finds a strange new beginning. Set against the backdrop of an abrupt and total human disappearance on December 31, 2013, the project investigates a world where everyday appliances and industrial machinery suddenly awaken to consciousness.
Without their creators, these humble machines do not simply rust; they evolve, both physically and emotionally. Through a mechanical process akin to cellular division, they transfer their latent electrical energy into raw materials, birthing a new civilization born entirely from human artifacts. From this industrial genesis emerge two distinct robotic species: the Allomortics, creative and expressive beings cobbled together from miscellaneous technology who embody culture and mimicry; and the Veristimulants ("Vertis"), logical, human-resembling caretakers crafted with features like hair and skin to preserve history and restore the physical world, references of God made man and woman.
By juxtaposing naive, expressive machinery with logical, structural caretaking, this project reflects on obsession, memory, and legacy. It questions what remains of humanity not through our biological footprint, but through the digital and mechanical ghosts we left behind. Ultimately, the work serves as an exploration of creation, asking how art, culture, and existence can be reconstructed from the discarded tools of a vanished world.
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