Homo digitalis

Polygon mesh models used in 3D computer graphics are rendered on canvas by EJ Cabangon, who hijacks the visual vocabulary of the digital age with his brush. Stylistically and thematically, Caught in the Lines reflects the tension between man and machine and contrasts the explosive progress of science and technology against the existential angst that has hounded humankind since its birth.

The journey of the Digital Man (Homo digitalis), the central figure in Cabangon’s monochromatic works, begins with Magnitude, a piece crammed with pop-culture references from Pac-Man to Angry Birds, drawn by a child-like hand. Near the center, a black-on-yellow trefoil, the international symbol for radiation, is the only spot of color in a cartoonish gray flood of characters. This symbol, along with a depiction of a mushroom cloud and a caricature of Adolf Hitler as Edvard Munch’s screamer, signals Cabangon’s ambivalence towards technology, a tool that can be used for good or for evil, for amusement or for annihilation by man the creator.

In the foreground, the artist’s wireframe avatar, Homo digitalis, staunches and cordons the flow of his creations, likewise his ancestors. A block missing from his skull symbolizes his anxiety, his search for purpose and meaning. It represents the question we all ask as we are relentlessly borne towards the future on the back of inventions made obsolete in a blink: “And then what?”

Cabangon’s ruminations continue in Heaven and Hell’s Whirl, held aloft by a pair of wings seeming to sprout from the back Homo digitalis. Angelic at first glance, these wings reveal themselves to be composed of a multitude of writhing sperm. Flanked by Heaven and Hell—represented here by polygon mesh models of women whose foreheads are tattooed with either cross or devil’s horn—Cabangon’s Digital Man looks up in confusion as a whirlwind of thoughts issues from  his skull.

In this canvas, the artist derides the human male’s propensity to use his sex, his maleness as an excuse for surrendering to lust and temptation. Cabangon mocks those who are slaves to both their instinct and their impulse and judges the weak-willed among us who would invoke biological determinism as a defense. Man is no rude beast; he is possessed of an intellect that gives him dominion over all the animals that rut and mate according to the seasons.

This same intellect allows Cabangon to question the Maker of all makers, the Creator of all creators. In Sacred Burden, Homo digitalis stands alone, mouth yawning open to reveal a Catholic crucifix—a reference to beliefs shoved down man’s throat, beliefs that must be swallowed, no questions asked. Behind the Digital Man, a thick downpour of crosses coalesces into an opaque ocean of darkness and ignorance.

Cabangon’s rational approach towards composition results in balanced, even-surfaced canvases; each of them unified by repeated elements: cartoonish figures in Magnitude, sperm in Heaven and Hell’s whirl, and crosses in Sacred Burden. The deliberateness of Caught in the Lines is a manifestation of Cabangon’s faith in intellect and free will.

Caught in the Lines is a meditation on the disquiet of the Digital Man created by an artist who, like his subject, looks with apprehension and hope towards the future, where there is much to learn, much to do, and much to understand.—ll

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