The initial concept for this project originated after a visit to the Natural History Museum (NHM) in Vienna. I was captivated by many of the exhibits, but one in particular held my attention with unusual intensity.

In the grand hall dedicated to dinosaurs - where full-scale skeletal reconstructions spanned the room - one specific skeleton intrigued me: that of a sauropod (see Image A). I was mesmerized by the intricate proportions of these massive creatures that once roamed the Earth. Among their many distinctive features, the elongated neck stood out as an icon of their species.

What fascinated me most was the structure of the vertebrae - bones of the neck - whose shapes are unique to sauropods. Vertebrae in general have complex geometries, but the repetition and flow created by the sauropod's cervical spine were especially striking. The lateral projections - almost wing-like in appearance - created a rhythmic visual movement, like a sculptural sequence frozen in time.

At its core, the object adopts a bone–skin schema: a solid internal skeleton — assembled from interlocking segments — supports a partially translucent outer shell. This outer layer draws inspiration from species like the glass catfish, whose skin allows interaction between the environment and the inner structure rather than concealing it completely.

The form creates a material gradient where the shell thins toward the solid base and, together with strategically applied cuts, allows light to move between darker, solid and lighter, transparent surfaces — emphasising the tension between structure and shell, solid and spectral, in and out.

The context of the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna is already a compelling contradiction: a lavish neo-Baroque building from the late 19th century, housing remnants of deep natural time, fossils, minerals, and, most strikingly, the monumental skeletons of dinosaurs. This tension between the ornamental grandeur of the interior and the raw, almost decaying presence of ancient bones became a central inspiration for the project's location

In imagining a site for the exhibition of VERTEBRAL, I sought to invert that juxtaposition, retaining the friction between worlds, but flipping its direction. Rather than placing ancient objects in opulent surroundings, the piece itself becomes futuristic and otherworldly, constructed from materials like polished steel and resin or glass, and is instead set within a derelict industrial environment.

This reversal intensifies the contrast: the sculpture's sleek, alien materiality appears detached and enigmatic, yet becomes more legible when layered against the textured decay of its setting. In this way, the installation conjures a dialogue between old and new, organic and engineered, ruin and future, each amplifying the other's presence through their shared estrangement.

But VERTEBRAL is not just a static form. Embedded in its foremost vertebra is a camera that captures its surroundings in real time. Rather than surveilling or classifying, this AI-enabled gaze interprets movement through neural networks, generating poetic, shifting visualisations that speculate on how machines might see.

Through this layered interaction, the installation blurs the boundary between object and observer, presence and perception.

If a machine begins to watch, remember and interpret — who holds the power of meaning? And when it looks back… what does it see?

The project was initially desiged with fabrication methods in mind.

Fabricated on a Bambu Lab P1S with a combination of Matte Black PLA and Translucent PETG, the physical prototype materializes the digital model, bridging the gap between virtual concept and tangible spatial form