But by the time Hugo published the novel in 1831, his compatriots Nicéphore Niépce and Louis Daguerre had already produced the world's first photographs, setting in motion a series of at least equally cataclysmic shifts that would, in time,
render the printed volume as quaint as an edifice of hand - carved stone.
Alongside a series of abject ink - jet
prints that looked as if they were plastered in bumper stickers purchased from an early 2000s Spencer Gifts and his 2012 video Raspberry Poser, in which animated
renderings of a condom and the HIV virus dance through the streets of New York City while Beyoncé and Mazzy Star play at an intoxicating
volume, he showed the animatronic sculpture (Female figure), a scuffed - up woman impaled on a stripper pole who speaks in Wolfson's voice and makes eye contact with viewers.