André began his productions in 1999 and elected pastel chalk as his primary material, with his research focusing on and his works inspired by famous European classical art. Currently engaged in guiding the public through art history and prompting reflection on the use of the internet, Miagui touches on the digital age critically. In the Zeitgeist collection, inspired by the philosopher Hegel’s theme of the “spirit of the time,” the research attempts to modernize the past, presenting moments of mastery from painters of an era without the internet to the audience. To trigger this interpretation, he places a computer motherboard over the eyes, symbolizing a place where the present extends into memories, perceptions, and imagination, projecting them into ways in which the history of visual culture shapes human culture, and within that motherboard lies this universal memory. More intriguingly, in the work “The Birth of Adam,” it is the man who wears the computer motherboard over his eyes, not his creator, and in another piece featuring several wild birds, the birds’ eyes are open as they discover and raise the motherboard as a trophy. The adornment can both dress to protect an individual, granting power and strength, and the excess of ornamentation can strip away personality. The question remains: spirit of the time?
This is the time that Miagui prompts us to consider in art, science, technique, and technology throughout all epochs of human civilization, from Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance to the dawn of modernity and the digital age, all rooted in the encyclopedic nature of knowledge. Libraries, once immaterialized, are now embodied in digital flows of personal archives, shared across networks.
