Botchy-Botchy

Hydra Algorithmica, 2022

“Hydra Algorithmica” by Botchy-Botchy, is inspired by the Greek mythology of Hercules’ second labour to slay the Lernaean Hydra, a multi-headed serpent; a common trope in Baroque art.

Influenced by drawings from Japanese master painters Katsushika Hokusai and Kawanabe Kyosai in the Edo period, the backdrop of the work is set in a cloudy full moon night. A Japanese female samurai standing on a suspended rock, brandishing a katana, faces a six-headed Hydra. Behind this multi-headed, fearsome monster, stands a Yūrei, a tall figure in Japanese folklore analogous to the Western model of ghosts.

The multiple appendages of the Hydra ending in snake heads take on various forms that includes a dinosaur type of head covered in polka dots resembling Yayoi Kusama’s repeating dot patterns; a triceratop similarly known as a “three-horned face” evoking medieval bestiaries; a Medusa channeling Albrecht Dürer’s etching style; a shouting human head inspired by Miró and Picasso; a 60’s psychedelic human head and a “Tokusatsu Kaiju” type of head evoking the strange monsters populating the Japanese sci-fi TV dramas such as Godzilla and Ultraman.

The later versions of the Hydra story added a regeneration feature to the monster where it was said that for every head decapitated, the Hydra would regrow two heads. This myth relates to the nature of the ‘Fold’, a unifying concept in Gilles Deleuze’s study of Leibniz and the Baroque (1988). It interprets the constant transformation of information being stretched, augmented, bent, crumpled, intertwined, gathered and dispersed again as it weaves through compressed time and space. A metaphor for the concept of baroque transformation but also a symbol of the internet and its ever growing connections.

Fusing different cultures, styles, fantasies and techniques, the work is accentuated and comes to life through an immersive experience with Artivive’s augmented reality software.