LUDMILA BELOVA

Staircases are probably the only city spaces that have not been subjected to the strong impact of time. Faзades change, interiors change, but staircases remain unchanged. While we wait for somebody, we look through the peephole. This is inextricably linked to expectation, apprehension and curiosity. In this work, however, what we see in the peephole does not look like regular visitors. It is the identifying code for Wi-Fi waves, and there is no need to look through the peephole in order to allow them into one’s home. Wi-Fi here is an image of the internet, an image of modern life in the “clouds”, in different spaces simultaneously; it is an assertion of the smooth cyber-evolution of the human being.

The panel “Digit and Gadget”. This is a collage situated on the broken matrix of a LED TV set. The “Gadget” in its center is a XIX-century embroidery turned with its reverse side (matrix) towards the viewer; the shepherd depicted on it is the typical character of a pastorale. Under the genre’s laws, he is looking for his beloved – the Digit.
The Digit is printed on the pieces of acrylic glass – here, she has already turned into a 3D model.

There are attributes of the natural pastoral environment all over the screen field – a bug, a butterfly, a flower. In the “sky”, the “stars” are lighting up and out.

The audio object “Tower”, is open for information reading and placed into the zone of art, it is a time capsule of sorts, the one that covers the last half of a century. The tower refers both to skyscrapers, that stand for progress, and to the Tower of Babel, that is a symbol of hubris. God punished people for their hubris and disunited them – people started speaking different languages and stopped understanding each other. Progress and human intellect have now united them again with the help of Internet by affording them an opportunity to translate online from any language. In the making of this object, the artist used details of household appliances that got out of use and a portion of the musical instrument. Audio files that it contains are the sounds that related to technological progress.

In the installation "Pastorale", copies of a porcelain shepherdess produced by a 3D printer are arranged on a screen that reproduces a video imitating a flowery meadow.
The sound is a compilation of the music of Jean-Baptiste Lully and the chirping of "electronic birds".

The plastic figurine from the 1950s — Digit Girl — is placed inside a transparent cube: she is walking in "the woods". Robots-insects are flying in the glowing digital space around her. There is a selfie stick in Digit's hands, she is pleased with life and she is joyfully photographing herself. Ludmila Belova elucidates: "Everything is beautiful in the digital world. There is no time in there: it can be stopped by touching the Pause button. The digital world is friendly and it is always willing to help, to blaze a trail, to select a medication, to feed, to console and to entertain. This is a new pastorale that is opposed to the harsh reality".