HOMUNCULUS

The figures in Homunculus reference the illustrations in The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, which features a young boy exploring the universe. Along the way he meets narrow-minded adults and discovers that wisdom does not come with age.

To create the characters in Homunculus, Paluzzi’s body was 3D-scanned by one hundred and thirty cameras. The digital textures of his skin were then manipulated and morphed into the seven characters. Once the figures were finished digitally, they were 3D-printed in sandstone and photographed in Paluzzi’s studio.

Much older than the little prince, Paluzzi is simultaneously the narrator of his own story – though an unreliable one – and a character whom he controls. The act of using his own body as a vessel, and then manipulating it, emphasizes this duality. He has fictionalized himself by creating doppelgängers in an attempt to confront, categorize, and conquer troubling aspects of his own reality.