CYFEST 2017: ABOUT FESTIVAL – PROGRAM – EXHIBITIONS – SOUND ART – EDUCATION – PARTICIPANTS – CONTACTS
The project “Frame of Reference” is an attempt to contemplate the phenomenon of coexistence and intersection of the unique and the ordinary, personal and social, romantic and trivial — everything that fills the world around us with life.
Perhaps all the diversity of objects and phenomena of the world that the human mind discerns is inexorably associated with setting up certain coordinate systems.
One could name a whole series of such systems which became milestones in creating a perception of the picture of the world around us. Above all, the creation of various alphabets, from the genetic level to written language and its computer realization. Also, the coordinate systems that engendered notions of time and the history of civilizations, coordinates of art, science and philosophy. The refinement of the techniques of visual art, creation of the language of harmony and notation in music, discovery of the principles of physics and the periodic nature of the properties of chemical elements — these are but a few of the numerous examples.
Consequently, the thought arises that for human beings, the very phenomenon of the observed world is a result of their mind’s development through the advancement of various coordinate systems.
According to the famous legend of how René Descartes came up with his coordinate system (1637), once the scientist spent a whole day in bed thinking about something, and there was a fly buzzing around and interfering with his concentration. He started pondering on how he could describe the fly’s location at any given moment of time so that he would be able to swat it without missing. And… he came up with the Cartesian coordinates. Thus, the artist’s position could be identified simultaneously both with Descartes, lying in bed, and with the fly crawling on the wall of his room.
That is to say, on the one hand, the artist is an observer who creates the precise net of definitions based on the phenomenon of the world that he observes, and, on the other hand, in his art, he himself is a “point of intersection” in a coordinate system that he himself created. The first position is determined by a metaphysical or transcendental vector whose invariable property is movement above everything and the unique nature of the outlook. The second point is projected inside the person itself by creating the zone of private priorities in our world of incessant changes.
The intersection of these two vectors constitutes a unique system for each participant of the creative process that also draws in the viewer as a possessor of his own coordinate system. This endless and manifold process of the clash of various vectors of subjective opinions, positions and systems engenders ever new points of intersection, new structures and connections, an environment for art and, ultimately, it creates art itself.
Anna Frants 
Elena Gubanova