St. Petersburg residents can visit the exhibition "Future Dwelling" (12+) from October 20, 2023 to January 8, 2024. The project consists of 24 large-format digital paintings and occupies 10 halls of the Marble Palace.
"Future Dwelling" is the first large-scale project of the art group GrOM, which unites photographer Olga Michi, photography historian Alexey Loginov and art historian Artem Loginov. Some of their works have already been exhibited, but the exposition at the Marble Palace was a full-fledged premiere of the entire cycle in its finished form.
The exhibition is a fantasy about what the future might look like, whether there will be room for human beings in it, and if so, how they will turn out. However, all but one of the paintings are based on photographs of real urban spaces and interiors.
To find future dwellings, members of the art group visited office centers, clinics, gyms, libraries, and elevator shafts. As many as three paintings were created based on the underground bunker where the Foreign Ministry's special archive was kept in the Soviet years: "Odyssey Energy", "Memory Cave" and «Lights of the Depths».
On the next stage of the work, invited technical specialists under the guidance of artists created objects and creatures that transformed reality into fantastic spaces. The finished digital paintings are printed on photographic paper, rolled on a dense dibond substrate and plasticized, which creates a special luminescent effect.
The creation of the project took three years. Chronologically, the first work in the cycle is "Millennium Theater". "Back then, the COVID-19 epidemic was in full swing, everything was closed. We came to the theater, and there on the chairs hang these signs "Do not sit" - recalls Olga Michi. - And we thought: this is probably what the future might look like. But what will be the functionality of these theaters if people don't sit there, if there are no performances? What will happen there? This picture was probably the most difficult for us. It took us a very long time to create it, as there was no proven technology at the beginning».
The exposition in the Marble Palace starts with a screen - it shows a short video that explains the main ideas and meanings of the project. For our part, we offer six useful hints on what to do at the "Future Dwelling" exhibition.
To review the details
It is not by chance that the paintings are made large - up to 4.3 meters wide. The authors chose this size in order to place many objects on each one that transmit the meaning embedded in the digital canvas. And the viewers will be able to see them all properly and decide what they mean.
Large formats and detailing are also hallmarks of the Düsseldorf school of photography, whose influence is acknowledged by the authors of «Future Dwelling».
"One of the most important ideas of the Düsseldorf School was that industrial objects can carry aesthetic value. Therefore, no matter what complex philosophical issues are raised, we still want people to enjoy what they see. Not only to think, but also to get visual pleasure," emphasizes Alexey Loginov.
To feel like a philosopher
In each work the authors have put a philosophical meaning, which can be unraveled with the help of explications - special texts next to the pictures. They do not explain what is depicted, but contain the artists' reflections on the problematics of the canvas. Explications allow us to better understand the creative intent and notice more details in which it is embodied.
«We as artists do not answer questions, but ask them through our projects," emphasizes Olga. - And we make our viewers think, react, enter into a dialogue with themselves, their relatives and friends. It's great when art encourages you to think and experience emotions».
To find all of Tatlin’s Towers
Each picture of the project is certain to feature an image of an openwork metal structure - the "Monument to the III Communist International". It was designed in the early 20th century by avant-garde artist Vladimir Tatlin. The monument was not built and existed only in the form of a model, which the creator first showed to the public in 1920.
From the very beginning, the dynamic architecture of the tower was recognized as an international event in the art world and is still relevant for contemporary artists. "We have great respect for the work of Vladimir Tatlin and decided to place this object on our works as a kind of symbol of workers' unity," Olga explains. - We reworked it a bit: we added a globe with various technological debris flying around it. The tower reminds mankind that it is necessary to unite to explore hostile worlds.
To get into the "Treasury of Human Knowledge»
The creators describe this picture as a "visual theater" - a fascinating image filled with details that are interesting to look at for a long time. If you want, you can even read the inscriptions on all the book spines of the fantastic library - so carefully and in detail everything is drawn.
«Here we ask the viewer a question: what he sees are some fantastic creatures or an already modified human being? - Alexey Loginov deciphers the idea. - In addition, in this work we have distorted the linear perspective of the images in a special way. This allows us to demonstrate that the people who look at it are partly creatures from the future, whose perception of the world around them is already changing».
To find out if you like this future
"When the audience comes and watches, they ask themselves: would they want to live in this world? In a clearly organized, structured, cold future? Many say it lacks the family coziness we are used to seeing in dwellings today. Maybe we should think about it and bring the coziness into the future?" - Alexei ponders.
To see the picture created by the neural network
The canvas "Ruins of Conflict" is not based on a photograph of physical space, but has a pictorial source - Pablo Picasso's "Guernica". The image encrypts the composition of the famous painting, but the characters of the last century have been replaced by modern ones generated by artificial intelligence. The authors admit: what creates a neural network, still far from ideal. You have to get hundreds, sometimes thousands of variants and manually refine the most successful one.
According to Alexey Loginov, with the help of this work, the members of the art group tried to find out how artificial intelligence interacts with the artist and whether it can take his place. So far, the answer is negative: a neural network is just a program. It performs the functions that are put into it, and nothing more.
But, apparently, "gromovtsy" do not consider artificial intelligence completely hopeless in creative terms. They have started preparing a new project dedicated to the heroes of our time, and it will already be completely created with the help of neural network. "That is, we already don't even take out the camera and don't shoot," laughs Olga.
