AROTIN & SERGHEI
> ABOUT (from ARS ELECTRONICA catalogue 2014)
Questioning everything we perceive, the research of the artist duo AROTIN & SERGHEI is focused on the illusionary surface of images, exploring the light impulse inside the hidden “alphabet” of invisible red, blue and green light pixels which make up all surrounding digital information, virtual image and text. We are all constantly inundated by advertising images and slogans. AROTIN & SERGHEI, in contrast, have created their installations and intermedial paintings to help the viewer overcome common patterns of thinking. In other words, it is an artistic method of changing the point of view and opening one’s mental space.
The first part of the art project INFINITE SCREEN was dedicated to Andrea Mantegna and the origin of perspective and illusionary painting in the Renaissance, and realized at Wiener Konzerthaus in 2013, with the world premie?re of Aureliano Cat- taneo’s song cycle Parole di settembre performed by Klangforum Wien, and, as a counterpart, with the exhibition of kinetic lightcell paintings FREE CELLS at Bildraum Vienna.
For Ars Electronica AROTIN & SERGHEI have created the second part of INFINITE SCREEN, inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s sentence “everything we see could also be otherwise” (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 5.634): a projected installation based on the observation of the viewers’ eye, and an exhibition of the intermedial paintings cycles FLYING CELLS, BLACKLIGHT and WHITE SCREEN.
“The focus is set on light cells, the smallest components of digital images that are shown liber- ated from their invisible existence, enlarged to monumental dimensions. This “magnification” is not based on real templates of light cells, but on the imagination of the artists. In their paintings AROTIN & SERGHEI are superposing machine- and handmade color layers combined with prism sheets.
The results are highly aesthetic, abstract works that oscillate with the movements of visitors that appear differently depending on the angle and distance. Due to the complex production method, reproduc- tions are out of the question and even photographs cannot adequately reproduce the images, as each photo can hold only one of the many views. The originals create an aura and give the impression that they would shine from themselves, and they pull their audience into the spell. The cell structures integrate “mistakes” that would refer in real screens for defective light cells (...). These “interferences” set by the artists generate a destabilizing tension and they are reevaluated as an aesthetic phenomenon”. Kaspar Mühlemann Hartl, museum in progress, extract of the catalog AROTIN & SERGHEI – FREE CELL at Bildraum Vienna
“Art and science together may help us to understand better the world and ourselves, and our relationship to this world. The most important, most influential images of our time are images which are nothing else than interpretations of measurement processes. In their work AROTIN & SERGHEI lead on the fundamental questioning, how we can understand these scientific processes, where to find the contradictions and the errors in this system, and treat about the basic element behind the screen - the light.” Gerfried Stocker, extract of the presentation at the opening of the exhibition AROTIN & SERGHEI – FREE CELLS at Bildraum Vienna
INFINITE SCREEN - art project in cooperation with museum in progress and Bildrecht. (c) Idea, concept, realization and live animation: AROTIN & SERGHEI - all rights reserved.
> THE ARTISTS
AROTIN & SERGHEI - Austrian artist duo, creating multidisciplinary intermedial installations and paintings. Arotin, born in Vienna, studied composition, art, film and setdesign. Serghei, originary Russian, studied art & history in Moscow, Montpellier and Vienna.
The duo presented recently Mute Space and Black Light at TEFAF-Maastricht, Pink Sound in Paris, Traces at MACBA Barcelona, Microcosmos in Milan, White Screen and Crazy Cells in Brussels and Berlin. In Austria they realized [non lieu], an installation for Beckett’s Godot, and in 2013 the first part of Infinite Screen at Wiener Konzerthaus with Klangforum Wien in cooperation with museum in progress, as well as the solo show Free Cells at Bildraum Gallery Vienna.
> PRESS EXTRACTS:
“Color, light and lines appear in the work of AROTIN & SERGHEI as pure substances”
LUXURY CULTURE magazine may 2012
“Overwhelming images”
press extract about SPACE SCREEN 2005
“Art maket - our exhibition choice
...Arotin & Serghei the artist duo, creator of luminous installations”
AD - Architectural Digest, numéro spécial signé Karl Lagerfeld 2012
“A dematerialisation process in a contemporary continuation and translation of the work of Malevitch, Rothko, and Turell.”
COLLECT- magazine may 2012.
Reminescent of Malevitch’s Black Square, but at the other end of the spectrum, WHITE SCREEN is the perfect example of the fictitious nature of white as a colour. When all the red, green and blue cells that create the pixels on an LCD screen are illuminated, our visually stimulated brains perceive a white coulor. But this white colour is only created from the sum of all the information.
tl.mag #15 TREND LIVING INTERNATIONAL - DESIGN ART FASHION LUXURY REATAIL CITY ARCHITECTURE
“new territorries” duo design september 2012
Arotin & Serghei create singular works in multiple media, using architectural elements, musical compositions, scientific measures, videos and texts. (1) Portraits of light enlarged to human size in such a way that it is compressed into a succession of primary and enchanting colors. (1)
LUXURY CULTURE magazine may 2012
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS & ART CREATIONS:
2014
Sept 5 - Oct 29
EVERYTHING WE SEE COULD BE ALSO OTHERWISE
solo exhibition & sound installation Brucknerhaus Linz
FESTIVAL ARS ELECTRONICA in cooperation with Bildrecht
Sept 7
INFINITE SCREEN II in homage to Ludwig Wittgenstein
- installation with sound from “Falling” by Delia Derbishire
- installation / live animation with the world premiere of “Chimères” by Marco Lemke
performed by Brucknerorchester Linz - Dennis Russel Davis
Brucknerhaus Linz - Great Hall
FESTIVAL ARS ELECTRONICA in cooperation with museum in progress
Feb 13-16
group exhibition ART UP! contemporary art fair / espace Art 22
LILLE GRAND PALAIS
Feb 7-10
group exhibition Affordable Art Fair / espace Art 22
TOUR & TAXIS Brussels
Jan 8-10
group exhibition “L’Art pour l’Accueil”
CHATELIN 18 Brussels
2013
11/12/13 - Dec 11 - ongoing solo exhibition
FLYING CELLS - kinetic composition
Tausend Berlin
Nov 8 2013 - Feb 3 2014
AROTIN & SERGHEI - FREE CELLS intermedial paintings
solo exhibition
in cooperation with museum in progress
curated by Gerfried Stocker / Ars Electronica
Bildraum Vienna
Oct 12
INFINITE SCREEN I
in homage to Andrea Mantegna
installation & live animation
with the world première of “Parole di Settembre” by Aureliano Cattaneo, texts by Edoardo Sanguineti
KLANGFORUM WIEN in cooperation with museum in progress -
Konzerthaus - Great Hall, Vienna
May 31
PINK OBSESSION
group show “BEAUTY DOESN’T MATTER - ”HAUSUNGARN Karl Liebknecht Str 9, Berlin
May 30 - Sept 15
PINK PILL
group show “CARRÉMENT AUDACIEUX” Galerie Philippe Guegan
CARRÉ RIVE GAUCHE - Gallery weekend Paris
April 16 - May 20
BLUE LOVE (solo exhibition)
Gallery Weekend Berlin - preview Whiteloft Berlin
Feb 3 - April 10
PINK CELL - intermedial paintings
private exhibition - Whiteloft Berlin
Jan 10 - 12
PINK LIGHT
group exhibition “Art pour l’Acceuil”
CHATELIN 18 Brussels
2012
Oct 18 - Jan 20
PINK SOUND
Galerie Guegan Paris
in occasion of FIAC 2012 Paris
Sept 12 - Oct 15
intermedial paintings
group show “Le carré dans tous ses éclats” Galerie Guegan
CARRÉ RIVE GAUCHE - Gallery weekend Paris
Sept 5 - Jan 7
CRAZY CELLS
group exhibition “Whats up @Flore?” Galerie Flore Brussels
in occasion of Design September Brussels and Art Days Brussels
May 31
intermedial paintings
group show Galerie Guegan Paris
CARRÉ RIVE GAUCHE - Gallery weekend Paris
April 18 - June 15
NANCY COSTE - AROTIN & SERGHEI
duo show Galerie Flore Brussels
in occasion of ART BRUSSELS 2012
March 18 - 27
TEFAF 2012
participation with MUTE SPACE 1 & BLACKLIGHT
at Galerie Flore
TEFAF, Maastricht