Alexandra Dementieva
From Baruchnewmedia
Russian artist who works with multimedia and installation to create an interactive discourse between the public, the piece and the artist.
Contents |
Biography
Born in Moscow (Russia) in 1960.
She lives and works in Brussels, Belgium
Artistic Approach
Alexandra Dementieva’s main interest is application of social psychology and perception in multimedia interactive installations. Her video work integrates different elements, including behavioral psychology and developing narrative through a point of view of subjective camera.
Her interactive installation projects attempt to widen mind's perception possibilities by different production means: computers, video projections, use of sound bands, slides, photography, etc. By making certain historical, cultural and political allusions her exhibition sites create the frame within which the idea develops. The projects explore spectator’s depths of perceptional experience and interaction of an individual spectator with the exhibition proper, as well as with other visitors. The object on an installation or its production means become less important to her than the mind of a user.
Thus the latter becomes the center of the project or the main actor of the performance.
Selected Works
Alien Space
The installation consists of 800 transparent, pearl-colored latex balloons forming two corridors (each around 2.40 m long) leading to a central circular space. The balloons are reminiscent of living cells, futuristic buildings, laboratories, children's rooms at Halloween… The installation generates mixed feelings of curiosity, attraction and repulsion at one and the same time. The shining metallic surface is threatening and the fragility of the thin balloon disturbing. When the visitor moves through the narrow corridor, from time to time he accidentally touches the balloon wall, triggering mumbling noises and an occasional weak light shining from inside.
‘Alien space’ is presented as a miniature of the human universe: it is amazing, cruel, childish, stupid, beautiful and fragile at the same time. It acts as an independent organism with all of its possible merits and demerits. Like the complete universe it reacts to all outside stimuli as well as internal changes induced by visitors. Every movement triggers either sound or image and [irreversibly] changes its composition. The installation consists of 800 latex pearl and transparent balloons forming two corridors, about three meters long each, leading to a central circular space. Images of various international television personalities continually mutating into extraterrestrials and robots are projected onto the balloons. When a visitor moves through the narrow corridors he inevitably accidentally touches the balloon wall, evoking mumbling sounds and an occasional weak light shining from inside a balloon. When a visitor reaches the central space, his movements cause changes in the audio and video environment. The sound environment is based on recordings in 67 languages from television and radio programs that mix in a Babylonian cacophony. Throughout his stay in the installation the visitor is immersed in a constant flux of clear and blurred images and sounds that affect him both physically and emotionally, with a worrying reality filled with accidents, potential destruction, dramas but also love stories. The seemingly normal becomes alien – harmless balloons become living cells, the entire installation transforms into a futuristic building or perhaps a laboratory with shiny metallic surfaces. The very fragility of the balloons thin skin becomes subconsciously disturbing, simultaneously arousing feelings of curiosity, attraction and disgust.
