Passions draws on the ecstasy and agony of Baroque works like Bernini's Ecstasy of Saint Teresa and Rubens' Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. Two mirrored figures collide, fracturing and splintering into each other, intercut with Baroque-inspired AI images of the idealized male form. While generating those images, I found that swapping "ecstasy" for "agony" in a prompt produced nearly the same result, and the piece lives in that ambiguity. Simulated cloth softens the sharpness of the figures, setting violence against sensuality.
