Alexandra Dementieva
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Alexandra Dementieva (Александра Дементьева) (born 1960, Moscow, USSR) is an artist who has been creating works of electronic,[1]video,[2] interactive and installation art since 1992.
Biography
Dementieva spent much of her childhood with her grandfather Eugene Volkov, a biochemist, who instilled in her a love of science. She graduated from Moscow State University of Printing Arts in 1985. Her artistic career began in 1984 when she originally practiced painting and drawing. In 1990 she moved to Belgium and began experimenting with Amiga 2000, Macintosh, PC computers and videocamera Hi8. She was interested in anthropology and psychology, particularly in behaviorism, which led her to create an interactive environment. She graduated from Academy of Fine arts Watermael-Boitsfort in Brussels.[3] In 1999 she became one of the co-founders of IMAL (Interactive Media Art Laboratory)[4] in Brussels.
Career
Dementieva's work is influenced by contemporary film directors like David Lynch, Jean-Luc Godard and David Cronenberg, to name but a few. Her use of the cut-up technique invites comparison with the cinematic montage as a method for altering reality that has been recorded. However, Dementieva’s editing depends largely upon audience participation, the chance and choices that she expects her viewers to make. This interactivity is an essential element in all her work. She has made spectator involvement an integral part of the creative process. She explores contemporary trends in the construction of a narrative, and questions the very process of storytelling by stepping aside and offering every viewer the power to reshape and manipulate the original imagery or plot. The sliced layers offer interesting juxtapositions and can derive new meaning or create a new contextual relationship in the viewer’s mind. Her methods are akin to contemporary VJ manipulations, musical remixing and recycling. Her visualisations echo Dadaist experimentations with texts or Russian absurdist’s poetry. The space she creates for each installation “stimulates unconditional mental freedom” Faina Balakhovskaya;[5] it is fluid, responsive and transformative.
Her interactive installations, exhibited in Brussels, Moscow and New York City, were described by artist Barbara Rosenthal as "Technically proficient, visually striking, fundamentally simple despite the mechanical and computational pyrotechnics she and her associates put themselves through to produce them, her works draw spectators into them, and in ways that circle back into their own minds."[6]
Her work has been exhibited in France, Brazil, United States, Spain, Mexico, Germany, Switzerland, Korea, Italy, etc.
Solo exhibitions
- 'Parallel Dimensions', Marion De Cannière gallery,[7] Antwerp (Belgium), 2013
- 'Universal Recording', EI (Experimental Intermedia),[8] Ghent (Belgium), 2012
- XL gallery, Moscow (Russia), 2009
- CCNOA,[9] Brussels (Belgium), 2009
- 'Non Unexpected Encounters'[10] RSUH Museum Center, Moscow (Russia), 2008
- 'Psyche and the Digital', Neutral Ground gallery,[11] Regina (Canada), 2007
References
- ^ "Psyche and the Digital by Antonio Geusa".
- ^ "Residency Unlimited Alexandra Dementieva". Residencyunlimited.org. 2014-01-19. Retrieved 2014-01-31.
- ^ "Académie des Beaux-Arts".
- ^ "iMAL.org". iMAL.
- ^ "Фаина Балаховская". theoryandpractice.ru.
- ^ Barbara Rosenthal (11 August 2010). "Alexandra Dementieva: Feel Like I Feel". an.co.uk. Retrieved 1 February 2014.
- ^ "home".
- ^ http://www.experimentalintermedia.be/eihuis/12/dementieva/index.html
- ^ "Alexandra Dementieva - CCNOA".
- ^ "Новости - РГГУ.РУ".
- ^ "Neutral Ground".
Additional reading
- Focus. Een blik op 100 kunstenaars (ISBN 9789461610652, D/2012/0012/18), text by Hans Theys)
- Article of Antonio Geusa, Psyche and the Digital: A Journey Aboard of Lumière’s Train through Alexandra Dementieva
- 'Russian Artists Rep The New Media Scene At The Venice Biennale'
- «ŽEN D’АRТ. THE GENDER HISTORY OF ART IN THE POST-SOVIET SPACE: 1989—2009» (ISBN 9785916110173, Moscow: 2010, texts by Nataliya Kamenetskaya, Oksana Sarkisyan)
- 'Over Vorm, Hans Theys' (ISBN 9789076593142, D/2009/8545/3)
- 'Alexandra Dementieva. Works 2000 - 2007' catalogue (Publication ; XL gallery, texts by Faina Balakhovskaya, Antonio Geusa, Luc Lambrecht, interview by Alexandra Obuhova)
- The Residents (ISBN 9789076855233, Bruxelles : Argos, 2007)