Marian Sandberg. The Little Machine 18 Apr 2026
Adelaide artist Marian Sandberg has established a unique and highly innovative practice that involves the exploration of the nature and functioning of her own body and the ways in which bodily functioning can be affected by or depend upon various technologies.
On her webpage, she says of herself,
“Marian Sandberg is driven by a need to feel human. Through multidisciplinary arts practice, she explores what being human feels like in a world where technological systems continually shift and normalise new ways of being. By creating quirky new technologies that sit at the edge of the societal norms they shape and uphold, Sandberg offers opportunities to consciously engage with and reshape the technologies that shape us.”
(Speaking of herself in the third person is consistent with her way of positioning herself as an object of study.)
Sandberg suffers from the autoimmune disease, Vitiligo, which causes the gradual loss of skin pigment (melanin) in patches. There is no cure for this genetically based disease, and skin damage can stimulate the disease’s progress.
On 18 April, she responded to her experience of the disease by undertaking an hour-long performance artwork, entitled NEEDLEWORK: live skin interface, before an intrigued audience at The Little Machine gallery. She asked fellow artist and qualified tattooist, Holley Rentch, to ink a fine line tracing the border of a patch of skin on her right foot that had lost its pigmentation. She expects that the depigmented patch will grow and the tattooed borderline will enable her to monitor its advance.
Holley Rentsch (left) and Marian Sandberg;
NEEDLEWORK: live skin interface, at The Little Machine Gallery;
photo: Chris Reid
In her catalogue note, she says, “Today I interface with my immune system through needle and ink as a way to reclaim agency over my skin’s appearance, and also to provoke the disease to progress further.”
The performance foregrounds tattoo art as a form of body art and the use of the body as site for self-expression.
Sandberg is also interested in embroidery as a traditional craft and has painted on a piece of fabric an image of the depigmented patch on her foot. The image is lightly coloured, as if it has more pigment than her normal skin, implicitly challenging the decolouration of her foot.
While Rentch applies the tattoo needle, Sandberg embroiders a boundary around the corresponding patch on the fabric. The resulting embroidery is a form of needlework parallel to tattooing, positing cloth as a metaphor for skin. The embroidered cloth stands as a record or artefact of the performance and is an art/craftwork in its own right.
NEEDLEWORK: live skin interface, installation view; photo: Chris Reid
While the performance takes place, Sandberg’s heartrate is monitored and relayed to a video screen on the gallery wall to show her bodily reaction to the tattooing. Her heartrate is also recorded graphically. (She indicated that her typical resting heartrate is higher than the average person’s). The screen also shows the action relayed from cameras positioned above the performers. The video record of the event will be retained and Sandberg plans to update the tattooed border on her foot annually.
NEEDLEWORK: live skin interface, installation view; photo: Chris Reid
While studying art, Sandberg was mentored by internationally acclaimed performance artist Stelarc, who is renowned amongst many other things for having had himself held aloft in galleries by hooks piercing his skin and for attaching remotely controlled armatures to his limbs that allow anonymous others online to activate his movements.
Stelarc contributed an insightful essay to the catalogue for Sandberg’s performance in which he refers to, “The body not simply as a biomedical object but also as a political site of exposure and ritual transformation.”
Sandberg’s other recent projects have also explored the interface between her body and technology. For example, in her Data Reveal Party (The Little Machine, 2024) she exhibited in glass tubes seven embryos remaining from her attempts at IVF, together with a cake of pink and blue layers representing the hypothetical sex of the embryos (which could never develop). The cake was offered to the audience in mock celebration.
Her sculptural installation, Remote, created during a residency at Adelaide Contemporary Experimental in 2025, comprised a massive, blood-red, electro-mechanical device representing her uterus, which had earlier been removed during her hysterectomy. (She had asked the surgeon to photograph the organ with her phone after the procedure). This device palpitated when triggered by motion sensors observing audience movement in the gallery.
Sandberg, who has degrees in information systems as well as in visual art, has also undertaken an extended art project designed to involve the assistance of Chat GPT. In its interactions with her, Chat GPT gradually tried to take over the direction of the project, causing her considerable stress, and she cited both herself and Chat GPT as collaborating artists in the resulting exhibition.
Marian Sandberg’s unique and compelling oeuvre adds a significant dimension to the field of visual art and especially the vast, varied and often controversial fields of performance art and body art.
Importantly, it also raises questions concerning the relationship between humans and technology. These are urgent questions given the rapid advances in technology and the evident lack of understanding of the implications of these advances for human agency and even human existence.
Chris Reid
When: 18 Apr
Where: The Little Machine, Regent Arcade, Adelaide
More info: thelittlemachine.com
Marian Sandberg: sandberg.io
Marian Sandberg’s tattooed foot;
NEEDLEWORK: live skin interface;
photo: Daniel Purvis
