Fakewhale Gallery Presents The Mousetrap by Iñigo Bilbao on Verse

Caught in the Loop: Suspension, Mutation, and the Illusion of Control

Bilbao’s latest series deepens his study of algorithmic distortion, shifting the lens from destruction to entrapment. “The Mousetrap” is not a collapse but a suspension where an iconic cartoon figure is seized mid-metamorphosis, locked in an evolving system that refuses resolution.

AI intervenes not as a neutral processor, but as an entity of relentless reconfiguration. Each piece within the series reflects a distinct phase of manipulation, a record of the moment between recognition and erasure, between presence and disappearance.

What unfolds is a ritual of adaptation, where identity is neither fully erased nor intact, but caught in an iterative loop of mutation.

The algorithmic process does not end in ruin, but in something more ambiguous, a figure that is both itself and something unrecognizable, stretched between the past and an uncertain present.

Bilbao’s work interrogates the act of remembering in the digital age: when an image is endlessly processed, fragmented, and rebuilt, does it ever truly exist in its original form?

“The mouse was never the focus, just the entry point. I set the trap, let the system work, and see what emerges. The result isn’t destruction: it’s suspension, a study in forced adaptation.”
— Iñigo Bilbao

Known for his expertise in 3D and experimental medical imaging, Bilbao treats AI not as a passive tool but as a force capable of unpredictable intervention.

“The Mousetrap” plays with the illusion of control, where each piece embodies the tension between recognition and distortion, familiarity and estrangement. The algorithm does not erase; it bends, reconfigures, and loops back, creating an eerie cycle in which identity is rewritten but never resolved.