Lampoon Aphantasia: an unfinished piece for mechanical piano
Photographer Walter Pierre and model Raya Martigny explore body as mechanism for Lampoon Meccano, in a visual editorial suspended between aphantasia, friction, and incomplete motion
Walter Pierre constructs for Lampoon Meccano a sequence that goes beyond the mere representation of the body, treating it instead as structure. The starting point is declared: An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano. Not a decorative title, but an operative condition. The subject is incomplete, suspended, programmed for a movement that never completes itself.
The images do not seek narrative. They proceed through states. The body appears as an uncalibrated device — a mechanism that replicates gestures without purpose. There is no psychology. There is a system that runs on inertia, until something intervenes to alter its balance.
What does it means Aphantasia? The impossibility of generating images
The term aphantasia introduces a fracture. In neuroscience, it refers to the inability to produce mental imagery. Here it becomes a visual key. The figures photographed seem stripped of internal imagination: they execute, they do not anticipate. They do not construct visions — they pass through them.
This translates into a precise grammar. Reflective surfaces, interrupted postures, isolated objects. Each element operates as part of a system that never reaches synthesis. Perception remains locked in a preliminary phase, as if thought were unable to transform itself into image.
Photographer Walter Pierre and model Raya Martigny explore body as incomplete mechanisms
The body loses its organic quality. It becomes a module. Joints are treated as hinges, poses as temporary configurations. People as unfinished mechanisms. The sequences insist on repetition and friction. Gestures reiterated without evolution, surfaces that interrupt continuity, elements that obstruct movement. The result is a condition of permanent misalignment. A system designed to function that remains without actuation.
The whole returns an organism designed but not activated. A system rich in design, yet deprived of actuation. Formal precision does not coincide with functionality. The body remains under construction, always incomplete. A machine waiting for the moment its parts will enter into relation. Until then, it produces simulations of movement. An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano becomes a score without performance. A sequence ready, continuing to exist in suspension.
Walter Pierre
Walter Pierre is a South African photographer and artist based in Amsterdam. His practice sits between fashion photography and visual research, with a language built on frame control, suspension, and tension between body and space. He works with both analogue and digital techniques, treating the image as construction rather than recording.
In his photographs, the body appears as an unstable element, placed within environments that function as closed systems. His images do not tell a linear story: they stage conditions, test configurations, isolate gestures. He is co-founder of Flint Studio and Flint Space in Amsterdam.
Raya Martigny
Raya Martigny is a model, actress and activist born on the island of Réunion, working between Paris and the international fashion circuit. Her work spans runway, editorial, and cultural projects tied to queer and trans representation.
Alongside her fashion career, she pursues an artistic and community practice. Since 2020 she has been involved in Kwir Nou Éxist, a platform dedicated to the visibility of LGBTQIA+ identities from Réunion. Her presence in images is never neutral: it introduces a political dimension of the body, tied to identity, exposure, and the construction of the self.
In the project for Lampoon Meccano, Martigny does not interpret a role. She integrates into the visual system constructed by Walter Pierre, becoming part of a device that works on misalignment, perception, and incompleteness.
TEAM
talent Raya Martigny, photography Walter Pierre, styling Stefania Chekalina, hair Jesper Hallin @AMGMT, makeup Anga Borodina @Saint Germain Agency, set design Clément Pelisson, casting Levi Hare, photography assistants Anthony Peyper and Helén Robertsson, styling assistant Alicia Barnet, thanks to Go See agency
