ALEXANDRA DEMENTIEVA

The totem consists of a clock mechanism, a monitor, and hidden video camera. It is a symbolic representation or embodiment of the concept of time and serves as a reminder of its flow, the impermanence of life or the cyclical nature of existence. Standing in front of it, the visitors speeds up the clock with their presence — the more they stand, the faster the hands spin, the ticking sound speeds up, their image on the monitor screen breaks up into pixels and disappears completely. When the visitors leave, the clock returns to the original local time position.

The work is based on face recognition technology, in this case the expressions on the faces of spectators. If they are not friendly and frowned, more frighteningly the object is approaching to the earth from outer space, darkening all over the black shadow, in which buildings begin to break down the, emptying the valley, burning forests. If a visitor is calm and smiling – zikkutar moves away, the disaster recedes.

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.

The installation consists of three light objects. Two of them are connected to the RSS feed via computers, and the third, with the aid of the anemometer, provides wind, temperature, noise of street (environment). The computer searches for all words related to the concept of ‘fear’ (for the first sculpture) and ‘desire’ (for the second) in the RSS. The more such words appear, the brighter are the object’s LEDs progressing from the base of object to the top. The third object is based on the same principle.
The viewer can walk inside the actual construction where an additional airspeed sensor is located. When she/he blows on it, the pattern of illumination changes — the simple act of breathing becomes visible and important.

It’s 1915. Modernism, which reigned in art in the late 19th and early 20th century, reaches its apogee. Pioneers of abstraction are consciously solving the problem of the crisis of artistic image. The desire to reproduce the unreproducible and to reflect a higher realit was, in fact, what brought forth images of Suprematism. Abstract art, which has been trying to cleanse itself from all visual allusions and to rid itself of any illustrativity in relation to the reality, presents to the world Malevich’s “Black Square” — “the great nothing”... 
The black monolith is externalization. It is the process by which the “internal OBJECT” is projected at a certain object in the outside world. It is a different person that becomes this object. Furthermore, upon superimposition, the projection brings forth something that is doubled by the mutual action of each protagonist. And what if this “something” is our internal monster or a new creation — a hybrid to which one needs to get accustomed and which needs to be tamed.

One can talk forever about the eyes, they are celebrated by poets and praised in scientific treatises. They are commonly known as “windows to the soul”, which has paradoxically gained a literal meaning with the invention of one of the most effective identification methods, the iris recognition. Its beauty and complexity could be compared with the surface of the planet. The eyes are celestial bodies in infinite galaxies which we observe in the night sky.

A series of tapestries together forms an installation that presents a sequence of film frames from the movie “Sleeper” by Woody Allen. The movie has been glitched and accidentally “edited” by the artist’s crashed computer, becoming completely transformed and practically unrecognizable. The order of narrative development has been rigorously preserved: the still images are arranged in the same sequence as they appear in the film. The tapestries convey the movie’s plot, but in their own way, where some parts have been lost and others have remained. The size of each tapestry is 58×77 cm, which corresponds to the television and film format (4×3) of the 20th century. The artist uses an old visual technique: the art of weaving. Even if contemporary digital media were destroyed, this technique would be preserved.
By pointing a tablet with an AR application at a tapestry, visitors can watch a video which gives an explanation for each tapestry. The video is made from the perspective of human descendants / space travelers, who have found the tapestries 2000 years later. Their conclusion is that the tapestry is a way to archive film and video from the 20th–21st centuries. The film they find is Sleeper, a science fiction movie about a dystopian world.

The principal feature of the Human Being is his desire to communicate, to create links, to exchange ideas, to discover. Since forever, people have been in constant movement. First they met nearby tribes, later established connections with other countries and continents. Bringing along their culture and tools and exchanging them with others, they enriched themselves and this process was expressed in technological and spiritual development. It has not always been this way, but the artist wants to focus now on their endeavor for enlightenment illumination. One of the sweetest dreams of mankind was to meet other intelligent life.

Imagine our psyche as a delicate sheet of paper, passed through the shredder of time and experience. Each event leaves its mark, tearing our sense of self into countless pieces. Then, like a gust of wind from a fan, our memories are swept up and swirled around, mixing and mingling until they become almost unrecognizable. As we attempt to retrieve these fragmented memories, we may find that only snippets remain intact. Perhaps it's the warmth of a sunny afternoon, the sound of laughter in the air, or the sting of a painful loss. These “extraits” serve as glimpses into the past, offering tantalizing hints of the emotions we once felt.

By placing SKOBY as the main actor, the artist emphasizes the agency and importance of non-human entities in shaping our understanding of nature and the environment. By shifting the focus from a purely human perspective to a more inclusive and holistic view, the installation prompts us to reevaluate our relationship with nature and foster a greater appreciation for the diverse forms of life and their significance in sustaining the planet.