There is a phenomenon in psychoanalysis called “transference”. During transference, the patient talks to his analyst as if talking e.g. to his father. At that point, according to traditional interpretation, the patient “transfers” his “feelings” for his father to his analyst. This interpretation is a construction, since feelings are not in fact transferable to someone else, such as a piece of property, for example. Yet, if we take a closer look to what’s happening here, we realize that during such moments, the patient is actually speaking to a hybrid figure. This figure, depicted by a visual artist, would most probably include features from both the analyst and the father.

In daily life, we often come in contact with such hybrid figures. We frequently confuse our companion’s figure for our father’s or mother’s figure, we confuse our child’s figure for our own as a child. There are all sorts of different hybrid figures: on a grown man, we may detect the child he once was or the old man he will become; a calm face may also include the imprints of sadness, tension, anger, fear; the woman as “pussycat” and as a “bitch”, is beyond “like” a pussycat or a bitch: the use of these specific words actually form her figure as a cat or a bitch.

Especially, when it comes to hybrid human-animal figures, we start delving into primordial depths. The human and the animal element are fused together into one being, coexisting in organic, intimate union. The containment of the singular form is abolished. The whole world, in its abysmal yet welcoming depths, becomes one. By delving into primordial depths, we also delve into the depths of time. Beginning with Aristotle, form emerges as a synonym for essence. Hybrid entities may carry us back to a mythical place--Chimera, the Sphinx, Harpies, Centauri, Gorgons— or shoot us out towards the future— Cyborgs, man and machine coexisting as projected shadows of a forthcoming world.

Ultimately, the hybrid is not about the past or the future. It’s about our present. It is perhaps up to the educated ear to hear the polyphony resonating in a single voice and up to the educated eye to discern polymorphy in a single form. Through Kyriaki Mavrogeorgi’s work we may be reminded of and led towards the cradle of an origin that awaits us.