Contemporary art has plenty of critics. Many artists, and their works are branded cynical, even fraudulent. Others are tagged as ridiculous, so obscure as to be meaningless. But no one can deny that modern art is different, challenging and original. And the subject of this film is one of the most original of them all.

Marcel-Li looks an average middle-aged man; bald and slightly rotund, with an assured, evenly-paced speech. His appearance makes his life and art even more surprising. The documentary begins with Marcel, a performance artist, buying a dress, an essential part of the ‘flesh robot’ he becomes on stage. The act, a reflection on the possibilities of interface, involves Marcel using robotic prosthetics to control graphic images. Elsewhere, as “Juan the fleshman”, audience members use a computer to control movements of his body, attached to robotic pumps and wires. This creates a “telematic relationship”, at once both erotic and sterile.

This is just the latest part of an extraordinary life which began in rural Spain, amongst a family which Marcel describes as “a complete social context” His farming background introduced him to “the sublime demonstration of birth” through the delivery of animals, and the often brutal atmosphere of death at the slaughterhouse. These form a strong element in his art, which revolves around the reinterpretation of the graphic self. Using elements of Catholic iconography and divine myth, Marcel reinvents the discourse of the absurd to incorporate his elements of the macabre and gothic.

Interspersed between Marcel’s monologues are images from his films: the primal rage of a scantily-clad woman hunting a swamp creature in the forest, watched by her snivelling lover and folk singers covered in blood; a group of hanging bodies, daubed in red, crawling round the gates of hell. Indeed, Marcel’s artistic journey has been greatly influenced by death, beginning with his formation of the “Forma Del Baus” entertainment theatre. From smashing cars to crucifixion, Marcel and his friends took life back to its most feral and desperate, using the traditional conceptions of folklore against their audience. Marcel moved on to “Los Rinos”, performing gothic cabaret which, as Marcel says, incorporated a range of genres “from the operetta to pornography”, and from there to his robotic rituals.

Ultimately, Marcel is still exploring his art. This film provides stunning visual footage of the journey that such an exploration has taken, and of the creative mind that continues to fuel some Europe’s most controversial works of performance art.