November 16 — 24
Exhibition project ID
Time Travel Center KOD
Participants:
Vladimir Abikh (Russia), Flow, 2018
Aizek, Alg (Russia), InsiDe, 2019
Marina Alekseeva, Vladimir Rannev (Russia), In Chocolate, 2019
Yves Bartlett (France), Contemporary_cruel_attention_opera, 2019
Bioroboty 019 (Russia), Physarum-fortuneteller, 2019
Marina Blinova (Russia), Who is the Player? 2018
Marina Blinova (Russia), Iete Omicron in Fearland, 2019
Franz Cerami (Italy), Reingres, 2017
Malitzin Cortés (Mexico), HYPER_D, 2019
Alexandra Dementieva (Belgium), Twin Depths, 2018
Alexandra Dementieva (Belgium), Cycloramadrome, 2014
Sandrine Deumier (France), Falling, 2019
Joe Hambleton (Canada), Stasis in Flux, 2018
Bianca Hisse Silva (Brazil–Norway), The Future is Classy, Crisis is Sexy, 2019
Pavel Ignatiev (Russia), The Lens: Macrostudies 2, 2019
Sergey Komarov, Alexey Grachev (Russia), Exaltation, 2019
Quentin Lengele (Belgium), BR9732, 2014–2019
Zoey Lin (Taiwan), Relation • Ship, 2018
Nataliya Lyakh (Russia–France), Unforeseen Obligation YX7913XY, 2019
Necko (Spain), RANDOM / Part of Transhumanity Project, 2018
Tuomo Rainio (Finland), Datafall, 2013
Martin Reinhart, Virgil Widrich (Austria), tx-reverse 360°, 2019
Alexander Shishkin-Hokusai (Russia), Game-Opera “Magic Flute”, 2019
Nikita Shokhov, Anna Evtiugina (Russia–USA), Klaxon, 2019
Angelina Voskopoulou (Greece), Behind This Page but not Disappearing, 2015
Polina Zinziver (Russia), Inter_phase, 2019
Alexander Terebenin (Russia), Triptychs, 2007–2017
Curated by Elena Gubanova (Russia), Anna Frants (Russia–USA), Victoria Ilyushkina (Russia), Isabella Indolfi (Italy), Jack Addis (UK), Lydia Griaznova (Russia), Jerome Nivet-Carzon (France)
Komsomola st. 2
Mon-Sun: 10:00 – 22:00
300 RUB – Adult visitors
150 RUB –Children (under 12 years old), students, pensioners of the Russian Federation
Free admission — Veterans of wars, invalids (I, II groups)
Vladimir Abikh (Russia)
Flow
digital photography, 2018
The images contain an animated process of changing screens of social networks on a long exposure, done in stereo and vario techniques. This is what we see, incessantly scrolling pages on our smartphone: the information transforms into a hodgepodge of words and images, and becomes an abstraction. We may have thought that technological process which gave the world the Internet and mobile communications would simplify our life, free up a lot of time and create a completely different new world. But instead, this process has dictated the rules of a new life. Now it is necessary to be constantly online and exchange instant messages, consume and impart information, store the history of all the places you have visited, and prove that your life is no more boring than other peoples’. The world has become so fast that our consciousness cannot process it. A continuous flow of information pieces simplified into memes has replaced big discourses. Behind the quantity, it is impossible to see not only quality, but even the content itself.
Marina Alekseeva, Vladimir Rannev (Russia)
In Chocolate
multimedia installation, 2019
With the technical support of Sergey Karlov Supported by CYLAND Media Art Lab Various characters from Soviet media reality who were long associated with the past have recently become the new face of modern Russia, in the wave of nostalgia for the Soviet era. By optical illusion, Alekseeva and Rannev put these resurrected dinosaurs in a chocolate fountain, in a “sweet life”. But even here they continue to sing the Soviet national anthem.
Yves Bartlett (France)
Contemporary_cruel_attention_opéra
video installation, 2019
The installation integrates a spectator into the construction of millennial sexuality, which we are confronted with on a daily basis through the Internet and digital culture in general. It reproduces the form of a classical opera, replacing live acting with video, and the orchestra with an electronic composition. The problem with the attention span that characterizes young generations is expressed by means of rapid and various changes in the video and soundtrack, which makes it impossible for the spectator to focus on any specific form. This project reflects the struggle of the 21 st century generation, where the influence of AI, ubiquitous screens, and a globalized and digital culture has created cultural disorientation.
Marina Blinova (Russia)
Who is the Player?
video, 2018
Made in compliance with brand rules for non-commercial use A mini-film made in Minecraft (Creative Mode). We can hear the main character’s inner monologue. Torn from his past and unable to make sense of the world around him he questions his own identity, the reality of things happening and his consciousness. We see the level of perception of a certain streamer who is possibly controlling our character in the game. Are the personalities of the player and the character the same? Who is the player? Whose monologue is it? A person who has lost his memory, or an artificial intellect who acquired consciousness in the game – or is it just the stream of thoughts of the film’s creator?
Marina Blinova (Russia)
Iete Omicron in Fearland
VR video, controlled game, 2019
“One day you stop playing the game created by someone else and create your own. At this moment, a lot of secrets come out,” Marina Blinova comments. Iete Omicron is the artist’s alter ego. Iete worked as a chat bot in a fictional company, wanted to be an Instagram model (a cyber model with a popular Instagram account), lives in the post-Internet, and searches for ways of maximal autonomization. To shoot this stream (a game is in development), she was forcefully put into the world of the artist’s nightmares. Thus, on this game level Iete represents our need to create the Other in our image. Just like her former colleagues, Iete transmits our desire to merge with the “technological Other”, which is inevitably anthropomorphic. What will the next levels look like?
Angelina Voskopoulou (Greece)
Behind This Page but not Disappearing
video, 2015
In creating a video work, Angelina Voskopoulou performs a dance for the camera (also known as a screendance), and does not document it. She choreographs a piece knowing that she will re-organize and manipulate the material during the editing process combining elements such as time, space, speed and spatial composition. In addition, one incorporates the movement of the camera, as well as the composition of the frames. Even though the body in movement is the ‘seed’ and inspiration of a screendance, often the movement phrases get ‘thrown’ around, the end becomes the beginning, the body gets fragmented and layers of dancers end up superimposed on to different backgrounds, creating a new work which is sometimes far removed from the movement material that it was initially based on. The artist’s decisions are based on the rhythm and composition of the new piece, as well as on the design, contrast and the proximity to the camera. She is trying to create a visual metaphor, using a combination of both the narrative and the location. The concept of a video choreography in her films is based on her own lyrics, texts and ideas.
Alexandra Dementieva (Belgium)
Twin Depths
media installation, 2018
Most of the Earth’s surface is covered with water. Water constitutes 60% of the human body and 80% of the brain. We all “emerged” from water, and this fact is stored in the depth of our genetic memory. In her media installation “Twin Depths”, Alexandra Dementieva invites us to become explorers and return with her to “our element” and, taking familiar objects with us, settle in the watery realm, forgetting about millions of years of the evolution of the human species.
Alexandra Dementieva (Belgium)
Cycloramadrome
interactive video installation, 2014
“Cycloramadrome” is a project in which spectators can interact with the work in an immersive ambient environment. Exploiting the technology of 360-degree projection developed in the 1950s, the artist sets out to utilize aspects of the surrounding environment as a vehicle for impacting on the audience both mentally and physically: the movements of the characters are designed to trigger the movement of the audience. The artist uses this technology to explore the complexity of common behavioral patterns as well as the public’s “iconophilia”, or constant manic love for images. The installation has three different modes of interaction.
Sandrine Deumier (France)
Falling VR
animation, 2019
Supported by Casa de Velázquez, Hangar.org, Institut Français Barcelona
“Falling” is the study of a collapse. Consisting of 9 collapsology scenes created from the imaginarium of Internet culture, this artwork tries to interrogate a possible dismantling of the human practices of nature subjection and species classification through a search of eco-feminist postures. The collective imagination from the Internet is short-circuited to develop new utopias and invent sustainable imaginations.
Polina Zinziver (Russia)
Inter_phase
VR video, 2019
The transformation of a human being into a cyborg has already begun, and one doesn’t necessarily need a mechanical core, embedded implants or sensors to become one. Technologies are deeply woven into our life on a psychological level. Numerous gadgets, including the smartphone, are the psychic extension of the body — they broaden its possibilities, complement the sensory organs and affect our identity through the transformed perception of the body. An interface invisible to the human eye connects us and our smartphones, acting as a medium for the two worlds, thinking in different paradigms. How can we learn to handle this interface properly, and improve it without cultivating all kinds of neuroses in ourselves?
‘‘Inter_phase’’ is a VR simulator that describes how to regain control over the gadget and information, and shows the result of the correct and harmonious tuning of our psychological interface. The soundtrack was written by the .//reboot//. team using generative techniques for creating surrealist sound textures. The music is inspired by meditative practices of Buddhist temples and is intended to complement the video’s atmosphere, immersing the spectator in a state of deep contemplation.
Pavel Ignatiev (Russia)
The Lens: Macrostudies 2
installation, 2019
The first version of the project was presented at the General Staff Building of the Hermitage Museum as part of the “Piero della Francesca Passion” intellectual marathon. “The Lens” continues a visual contemplation on the hypothetical nature of research approaches to art. “Macrostudies” are opposed to microstudies, a trend in science associated with the names of Giovanni Levi and Carlo Ginzburg. For microstudies, attention to details is characteristic: from parts and case studies, the complex constructions of anthropological narratives are born. Ignatiev reproduces details from Piero della Francesca’s works — beads, an egg, a horn, a column — on an enormous scale in relation to the original. Perhaps something similar takes place in scientists’ minds when they set up a “magic lens” in their mind. Enlarging objects to hypertrophied sizes, they endlessly focus on the specific question, and lose connection with reality. This is a trap into which any specification of knowledge will eventually fall.
Sergey Komarov, Alexey Grachev (Russia)
Exaltation
interactive installation, 2019
Supported by CYLAND Media Art Lab
The basis of the project is live streaming. It takes place on the social network Instagram with two accounts that the artists created specifically for the exhibition. The installation consists of a smartphone and the screen. The smartphone is attached to the counter, and the LC display is situated in front of it. The first account is opened in the phone; it is streaming live. The second account transmits a connection to the broadcast of the screen. One device looks at another; the screen for live-stream viewing repeats endlessly. An endless digital tunnel appears that stretches off into the distance. All the visitors of the exhibit end up in this tunnel — those who pass between the phone and the monitor and those who connect to the broadcast from their gadgets.
The virtual abyss with an intuitively comprehensible interface feeds on what goes on in reality. A person who appears before the camera for a moment eclipses what has been streaming a split second ago. Random passers-by captured by the camera replicate ad infinitum, get blurred and fall into nothingness. The same abyss is the destination of people who have connected to the broadcast — with all the comments, notifications, likes and emoji.
The live broadcast is on every day, and it lasts for an hour. For the rest of the time, viewers see a recording. On the next day, the previous streaming is forgotten for the sake of a new live transmission. To join the streaming, go to the user’s Instagram @tjhfsythwreg.
Malitzin Cortés (Mexico)
HYPER_D
VR installation, 2019
"Infinity overflows the thought that thinks it," said Emmanuel Lévinas. What stories could objects tell if they were able to do so? How would they narrate the footprint humankind has left in the world, and the impact of this footprint? How would they name themselves? What would they say about our urgency to invent ways of inhabiting the future? According to Timothy Morton, hyperobjects refer to things that are mass-distributed in time and space in relation to humans, and are long-lasting human products such as polystyrene, climate change or islands of plastic.
Quentin Lengelé (Belgium)
BR9732
VR experience, 2014–2019
‘‘BR9732’’ is a virtual tour inside Rick Deckard’s apartment. Have a drink on the balcony, watch the streets from the 97th floor and take a walk through one of the most epic Cyberpunk atmospheres. Always wanted to start the Esper Machine by yourself and play the piano? Enjoy accurate 3D sound effects and music around the apartment. Have a new look at the movie and feel as if you were there. ‘‘BR9732’’ is a hobby project done in the artist’s free time, which began in 2014 when he decided to put himself virtually in his favorite movie scene: Deckard’s balcony view in “Blade Runner” (1982).
Zoey Lin (Taiwan)
Relation • Ship
VR installation, VR experience, 2018
With the participation of Kun Xia and Ping Sheng Wu Initially the audience witnesses evocative gestural performance animation of the main character, “Fish Bone Queen,” giving away precious gifts from her own body. Upon entering the virtual reality environment, the viewer is immersed in a living bodyscape. This idea mirrors the perceived natural world and fluctuations in human relationships. Ultimately the viewer will be left with a more intimate understanding of how worlds can be perceived differently depending on your vantage point. This project was originally designed to be displayed in an installation setting as a stop-motion film and 3 VR headsets which provide 3 different immersive experiences inside the main character.
Nataliya Lyakh (Russia–France)
Unforeseen Obligation YX7913XY
video installation, 2019
According to many cognitive theories, creativity is the only human, personal and mysterious component of our Self. Hypothetically, the psychological Self is a combination of conscious and unconscious ideas about reality; intuition, dreams and associations are windows into the unconscious Self and the source of creative impulses. Perhaps these are our personal paths, orienting us in the elusive modern labyrinths of virtual revolutions. The density of social networks and the quantity of virtual dimensions that are rapidly increasing; news streams in which facts do not differ from the fake; rating systems that change familiar social connections are all absorbed by the modern Self, transforming the relations between the conscious and the unconscious, the rational and the irrational.
This video installation is a reflection on the possible inequality of our perception of the real world and the virtual world. In both cases we quench our thirst for knowledge. Perception of contemporary virtuality may not engage all our sensory systems. Could it be a stimulus for that deep unconscious association which is probably the impulse for our creativity? The virtual has become our second oxygen. Do we still choose the proportion between virtuality and reality in our life? What role does creativity play in interpreting the life process in the era of virtual revolutions? Does it remain a means for retrieving our unconscious for interaction with outside worlds? Could it be that this is the very goal of our many-sided all-powerful Self, which transforms any reality?
Tuomo Rainio (Finland)
Datafall
video, 2013
The video is created by converting brightness values of the video image into 8-Bit numerical representation. The visual appearance of the landscape is translated into a matrix of numbers. Different visual shapes of numbers and the overlapping digits generate raster-like structures and variations on the surface of the image. The landscape and the waterfall are still present and recognizable visually, even though none of the original colors remain in the new image. Its translation into numbers is an attempt to remind the viewer about the abstract materiality of the digital image. In this case each loop starts with a fade from black, which can only be observed by reading the numbers on the screen and conceptually figuring out that the number 0 represents black. Tuomo Rainio is interested in the idea of legibility of the image, and he sees photography as an a priori conceptual practice where the logic of the apparatus is always written into the form of the image. In the case of digital photography, this logic is embedded in the binary structure of the digital logic. Reading and writing images mean manipulating this underlying logic on the level of the data and the code. By writing custom software, the artist is able to grasp the digital material and reveal its structures behind the visible surface.
Martin Reinhart, Virgil Widrich (Austria)
tx-reverse
360° installation, VR experience, 2019
What happens in a cinema when you film it at a resolution of 10K with a 360° camera, and then reverse the spatial and temporal axes? In a way never before shown, "tx-reverse 360°" shows the collision of reality and cinema and draws its viewers into a vortex in which the familiar order of space and time is suspended.
Bianca Hisse Silva (Brazil–Norway)
The Future is Classy, Crisis is Sexy
portrait videos on continuous loop, 2019
Incorporating an aesthetic often present in mainstream social media, this work reflects on functions and possibilities of self-depiction in the age of digital communication. The frenetic rhythm activates a state of partial attention in which a full linear comprehension of the piece is practically not possible. Short time-lapse videos present the complex position of the portrait nowadays, questioning its place, form and content in the social circulation of virtual life.
Movement in public space, a recurrent subject in Bianca’s practice, this time suggests an almost imperceptible action: we see her observing something, moving her eyes from one side to the other, slowly and persistently. In this work, Bianca appears in strategic points of various cities — squares, parliaments and historical sites — spaces that normally carry a double function. They are not only the scene of countless tourist selfies, but also a stage for protests and political demonstrations.
Alexander Terebenin (Russia)
Triptychs
slideshow, 2007–2017
Supported by CYLAND Media Art Lab
The triptych form originated in the early Christian art, and was a popular format for religious paintings in the Middle Ages. The middle part contained the main subject, and the wings were a compositional complement, although they could also be viewed as a separate work. In the early 20 th century, a threefold polyptych inspired Kazimir Malevich. Originally, his “Black Square” was a component of the triptych, together with the “Black Circle” and the “Black Cross”. Alexandre Benois noted: “Undoubtedly, this is the icon which the Futurists prefer to Madonnas and shameless Venuses”. A hundred years later, Alexander Terebenin has created a minimalist and abstract triptych, using the pictorial geometry of vanishing scenery. The squares, rectangles and crosses, “spied on” by a camera, are written into the three-part format. Traces of life of previous generations turn into secret signs and sacral symbols.
Joe Hambleton (Canada)
Stasis in Flux
video, 2018
“Stasis in Flux” in an experimentation of animation's potential to mimic the real. The artist began by building a zoetrope within 3D space to test whether persistence of vision is replicated accurately. From this experiment, he realized 3D animation’s potential to go beyond the physical limits of the real, allowing him to coordinate movements between both the camera and the zoetrope to replicate much more advanced cinematic techniques. The result is a carefully choreographed animation that represents the ebb and flow of the creative process.
Franz Cerami (Italy)
Reingres digital
installation, 2017
"A world of breathless immobility in which the elusive idea of timelessness descends, the classical perfection that periodically haunts Western art." Thus Robert Rosenblum described the painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, “La Baigneuse”, a 19 th century masterpiece, of which “Reingres” by Franz Cerami is a contemporary reinterpretation. The accurate painting work that Cerami applies frame by frame to the final videos contains the tactile dimension of the digital that Derrick de Kerkhove has identified as the "point of being”. Specifically referring to one of Franz Cerami's early works, de Kerkhove states: "The point of being is the point of coincidence between the origin of thoughts and the bodily sensation that it causes. (…) The webcam is the main tool, the main one for Cerami, of the contemporary representation of identity on the web.”
Alexander Shishkin-Hokusai (Russia)
Game-Opera “Magic Flute”
computer game, 2019
A project about the artist’s life journey. Any journey is full of uncertainties, and by leaving them behind we look closely at the circumstances that have brought us to particular decisions. Just as in Mozart’s “Magic Flute”, where the hero goes through a number of self- assigned ordeals, which appears to be an initiation ritual to become a new man, or even a new creature. This work is dedicated to the freedom of choice in the infinite space of possibilities.
Nikita Shokhov, Anna Evtiugina (Russia–USA)
Klaxon
VR installation, VR experience, 2019
This project serves as a laboratory for understanding the Other. It is a research-based VR 360° film which uses the medium of a spherical image to show the awareness of “one’s self”, “blackness” and “belonging” concepts in contemporary American society from the perspective of an immigrant. The protagonist is a woman played by several actresses of different ages and races. Through symbolism and metaphorical language of different selves, a viewer has a chance to contemplate her intimate memories, thoughts, in the endless process of becoming of her personality. This experience explores consciousness and draws attention to the importance of understanding each other.
Aizek, Alg (Russia)
InsiDe
VR video, 2019
You are placed in a cube that represents being inside a neural net. The images on the walls are obtained from a neural network through feature visualization. This technique consists of iteratively tweaking neural network inputs to cause certain behavior. In AI research, feature visualization is used for interpreting neural networks decisions. The class probabilities come from the neural net named InceptionV1. This is a convolutional neural network, trained on Imagenet — a dataset of 14 million annotated images of everyday things. Normally it is used to classify images in one of 1000 classes. It turns out that the networks created for image classification have a surprising capacity for generating images, and the results are quite interesting visually. By reversing the original purpose of the network, Aizek (Michael Anoshenko) and Alg (Aleksandr Groznykh) take a look "inside the machine’s mind". Their research is focused on understanding how a neural network forms concept of the world. By using feature visualization, one can obtain the "perfect version" of any concept, or its "AI ID".
Bioroboty 019 (Russia)
Physarum-fortune teller
interactive installation, 2019
Participants: Alena Koroleva, Marta Mikhailova,Victoria Romanova, Svetlana Sydorova
The need to believe in a higher plane is part of human nature, but if the guides used to be fortune tellers and astrologists, they have now been replaced by computer technology. The physarum-performer is a brand-new prophet in tune with the spirit of the times, on the boundary between biology and informational technologies. In the installation, the “rational” eukaryote is united with machine intelligence, so that everything beyond consciousness can reach us in a brief and clear reply. Through palm lines, the physarum finds the shortest ways to the truth, predicting fate effectively and promptly. Its capacious solutions are transmitted to the computer which encodes its messages into letters and punctuation marks, and acts as a reliable mediator with a familiar interface.
Necko (Spain)
Random
video, 2018
Part of Transhumanity Project
Times of confusion and confused visual and sound stimulations that are difficult to process. Confused and stunned brains. Lives agitated by data, images, sounds and concepts drowned in a sea of inputs for which we are not designed. Temporal, changing and manipulated reasoning and mental schemes. Lives full of chaotic information disturb our judgment. What are we? Where do we go? What do we believe in? Are we so arrogant as to believe that the bombardment of information does not affect us? Do we have our own criteria or do we just repeat what we are injected with, a flow of information impossible to process? “Random” represents that chaotic relationship between technology and being, the chaos that our life has become. A search for sensations that is close to confusion, saturation and vulnerability.