El yo no cabe en la carne * 2026
Domus Artium 2002 Contemporay Art Musem (Salamanca, Spain)
El yo no cabe en la carne is an immersive performative installation presented at Domus Artium 2002 (DA2), Salamanca, on 17–18 April 2026.
Developed by António Baía Reis, El yo no cabe en la carne explores the shifting boundaries of identity at a historical moment in which the self increasingly exceeds the limits of the physical body, unfolding across virtual environments, avatars, artificial intelligence, and networked forms of existence. Positioned at the intersection of performance, photography, poetry, and immersive media, the work proposes technology not as spectacle but as a poetic apparatus through which new forms of subjectivity, embodiment, and perception can be sensed and experienced.
Rather than presenting a linear narrative, the installation unfolds as a living visual poem. Large-scale photographic compositions, spoken word, projected imagery, and performative presence converge to create an environment where body and image continually dissolve into one another. The work invites audiences to inhabit an intermediate space between physical and virtual realities, where identity is understood not as a stable condition but as a fluid process of transformation. In this expanded territory, the question is no longer who we are, but how we continually become through images, technologies, and encounters.
The project originated from an educational and artistic experiment developed with António Baía Reis's undergraduate students in the Communication and Audiovisual Creation programme at the University of Salamanca. As part of a creative exploration of 360-degree and virtual reality photography, the students produced a series of experimental self-portraits examining the relationship between body, space, and digital perception. These works became the conceptual and visual seed for the installation, demonstrating how pedagogical practice can evolve into independent artistic research. The complete photographic series was later published as the artist's book El yo no cabe en la carne, extending the project beyond the exhibition space into a permanent visual archive.
Conceived as a live performative installation, the work is activated through the voices and bodies of performers António Baía Reis and Christian González, whose presence transforms the photographic material into an ephemeral choreography of image, language, and movement. Rather than illustrating the photographs, the performance expands them, allowing each image to unfold as a temporal experience in which poetry, gesture, and projection become inseparable.
Developed within SciCommXR, António Baía Reis's Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Salamanca, the installation forms part of his broader arts-based research investigating how immersive media can generate new modes of cultural, scientific, and philosophical communication. El yo no cabe en la carne extends this inquiry into contemporary art, proposing immersion not as technological novelty but as a means of cultivating reflection, vulnerability, and embodied attention.
The exhibition also included a participatory workshop inviting visitors to create their own visual poems through photography, writing, and digital media, further dissolving the traditional distinction between artist and audience. Here, creation itself becomes a shared performative act, reinforcing the project's central proposition that identity is always relational, unfinished, and continuously composed through acts of imagination.
FULL PERFOMANCE:
CREDITS:
Artist, Concept & Creative Direction: António Baía Reis
Performers: António Baía Reis & Christian González
Production: Domus Artium 2002 (DA2), Museum of Contemporary Art, Salamanca
Research Framework: SciCommXR – Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Salamanca
PHOTO BOOK:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oCdtkOQhIXprOiZ1ki8m-f3_CyGbSzVJ/view?usp=drive_link
MEDIA:
https://lacronicadesalamanca.com/663095-antonio-baia-reis-llega-al-da2/
https://www.salamanca24horas.com/cultura/da2-propone-experiencia-inmersiva-transformacion