Net-Trapped Cross, 2021

Digital vector print – 600 × 600 mm

In this digital composition, a crucified Christ is affixed to a cross shaped as a hashtag, constructed from wooden beams and planted in a barren, desert-like plain. Rendered in vector graphics, the image evokes a stark and surreal atmosphere, where the traditional Christian icon is visually and conceptually ensnared within a contemporary symbol of digital culture. Subtle glitch effects disrupt the image’s surface, hinting at instability, fragmentation, or digital decay.

As part of the Popicon cycle (2011–2022), this work typifies the artist’s strategy of merging classical iconography with the semiotics of mass media. The use of a hashtag – a ubiquitous emblem of social media visibility and viral discourse – reframes the crucifixion within a framework of mediated suffering and performative exposure. In this context, Christ’s figure becomes not only a symbol of spiritual transcendence but also a commentary on algorithmic entrapment and the commodification of visibility.

The visual austerity of the scene – flat planes, schematic space, and the limited desert palette – enhances the symbolic clarity of the composition. Yet the glitch motifs introduce rupture: both literal, in terms of the image’s digital integrity, and metaphorical, as an allusion to the dissonance between sacred tradition and networked modernity.
Operating on the threshold of reverence and critique, the piece exemplifies
a broader artistic inquiry into how contemporary iconologies overwrite, recontextualize, or distort inherited narratives. Beneath its clean surfaces and minimalistic forms lies a layered meditation on presence, sacrifice, and the cross-referencing mechanisms of 21st-century culture.