Neogastropoda unpacks the trauma nature endured in becoming commodity Western dichotomies of human and non-humans as resources unravel, exposing the estrangement of having lost our attunement with, and awe for, nature.

Goutos’s handling of the materials (large shells specimens) mimics the absurd behavior of humans when driven by profit. Neglecting to accentuate the natural beauty of the form but rather to colonize it with stubborn intent. Invasively splicing through the once-living exoskeleton, ceasing only when the object becomes uncanny, dissected and exposed.

Nature, comparatively, has no concept of a “raw material” or a “finished product”. When matter is no longer suitable for one specimen it is broken down into vital building blocks for use by the next. In this light, it is interesting to imagine the still beating will of minerals encrusted in a post-consumer object.  Longing to remain relevant. Quietly scheming on how to escape anthropogenic linearity. In actuality, any given technofossil, would be lucky to be recycled, even if only by reduction to its most basic function- i.e. an iPod Nano as a clothespin. 

Studying techniques that range from ancient tree grafting to modern surgical interventions and employing the dreamy distortion of an AI, Goutos was able to imagine an eerie fusion of the often-incompatible wills of nature and man. What remains uncertain is whether these hybrid creatures are exciting postcolonial, eco-feminist prototypes or distressed organisms, disfigured by human intervention?