Joel Blanco - MANDÍBULA

 “The screen before you unfolds the Empire: the feed. Excitedly, the algorithm shows you the edifice it has built, brick by brick. Shingeki no Kyojin, the end of the world, motivational edits with quotes by Marcus Aurelius, jawline-strengthening tutorials, and spray-on Minoxidil ads.”  

MANDÍBULA explores the utopian masculine narratives that emerge in contemporary digital culture. These narratives express desires for purity, power, and transcendence in the face of a postmodernity seen as decadent, from the esoteric currents and depictions of spiritual purity of the 19th century to their return in forums and platforms such as 4chan or TikTok. Epic imagery, heroic bodies and digital landscapes conjure up the idea of ruins and castles as emotional technologies that direct the anxiety of the present towards the past. These nostalgic utopias reveal a masculinity that no longer seeks to dominate the world, but rather to find a sense of belonging within it.

Read the first part of MANDÍBULA here.

Joel Blanco is an artist and designer. He describes himself as an “inactive member of the Pokémon generation and junk food expert.” His work, deeply influenced by popular culture, lies between visual art, design, and research. He is the curatorial director of Mayrit, a biennial festival of design and critical thinking in Madrid. Recognized by Forbes as one of the 40 most influential futurists in Spain (2022), he has been an artist in residence at the Real Academia de España en Roma (2025).

Full OpenLAB  program.