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If only you could see what I‘ve seen with your eyes. Stage 2
Tallinn
Type
The exhibition takes the visitor into the world of living machines, patterns imprisoned in synthetic materials, and two-dimensional sculptures of genetically modified life forms, with the daring typical to the dystopian realm.
Katja Novitskova’s oeuvre is located at the crossroads of visual culture, digital technologies and speculative fiction: she is interested in how the rapidly developing planet is increasingly more dependent on various data flows, which intermediate, preserve and alter the environment that surrounds us in visual form. The display is an immersive environment interpreting and looking back at the current day from the future, where the world as we know it is no longer recognisable.
If Only You Could See What I’ve Seen with Your Eyes. Stage 2 works from the intersection of big data-driven industries and the expanding domain of seeing in the thick of ecological crisis. The display is an immersive environment inhabited by living machines, graphic charts embedded in synthetic materials, and two-dimensional sculptures of wild and genetically modified life forms.
Today, almost all aspects of human and non-human lives are being registered on an environmental scale. The collection and processing of data has become a tool used to map all possible surfaces on Earth and beyond. Seeing has become an expanding extractive industry. Emerging from these new visual forms, the exhibition explores the radical new articulation of the role of the image, and how constant planetary scale mediation gains an ecological dimension.
Originally from Tallinn, Katja Novitskova first became an artist in Berlin and Amsterdam. She is not only the most outstanding artist linked to the Post-Internet movement in Estonia, but also one of the key artists at its origins worldwide. Novitskova has earned a lot of international acclaim: she has had personal exhibitions in New York (2016) and Shanghai (2017), her works have been included in group exhibitions at the MoMA in New York (2015) and at the Lyon and Berlin Biennials (2015 and 2016). In 2017, the Estonian president Kersti Kaljulaid recognised Novitskova by presenting her the Young Cultural Figure Award.
“If only you could see what I’ve seen with your eyes,” says the replicant Roy Batty to the maker of his eyes in the sci-fi film Blade Runner (1982) by Ridley Scott. Katja Novitskova and the curator Kati Ilves borrowed the quote for the title of the exhibition in the Estonian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2017, referring to the complexity of seeing in the contemporary data maze. For the show in Kumu, the artist and the curator have progressed from the project that the Centre for Contemporary Arts Estonia produced for the Estonian Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale by including a number of works that have not been presented before, plus some pieces created specifically for this exhibition.
The exhibition was accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue in Estonian and English, which was presented at Kumu on 5 April 2018.
Approximation (corn snakes hatching)
Digital print on aluminum, cutout display, acrylic glass 131 x 245 x 35 cm Courtesy of the artist;
Growth Potentials (5 arrows)
Digital print, polyurethane resin, found insects, acrylic hooks Dimensions variable
Wild Life Observation
Sound piece by Kareem Lotfy, speakers, aluminium ‘ribs’, robotic bugs, epoxy clay worms 300 x 100 cm
We are at an inflection point
Digital print, polyurethane resin, rotating ceiling hook 90 x 115 x 0.5 cm Courtesy of the artist; Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin
Everything bends before a hurricane
Start, bias encoded, finish
Digital print, polyurethane resin, rotating ceiling hook 70 x 154 x 0.5 cm Unique Courtesy of the artist; Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin
Though it lacks eyes, it can still see light
Digital print, polyurethane resin, rotating ceiling hook 75 x 135 x 0.5 cm Unique Courtesy of the artist; Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin
Mania Phase
Digital print, polyurethane resin, rotating ceiling hook 140 x 80 x 0.5 cm Unique Courtesy of the artist; Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin
Drunk with Power
Digital print, polyurethane resin, rotating ceiling hook 100 x 124 x 0.5 cm Courtesy of the artist; Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin
The right to harvest a resource
Digital print, polyurethane resin, rotating ceiling hook 80 × 140 0.5 cm Courtesy of the artist; Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin
If they were boulders they could run
Digital print, polyurethane resin, rotating ceiling hook
Annual Report (Performance Anxiety)
UV printer ink,epoxy clay,nail polish 25 x 34 x 1 cm Unique Courtesy of the artist; private collection
Annual Report (Shape Segmentation Algorithm)
UV printer ink, epoxy clay, nail polish 25 x 34 x 1 cm Unique Courtesy of the artist; private collection
Approximation (trail camera night vision, wildebeests)
Digital print on aluminium, acrylic glass, cutout display 148 x 143 cm , 112,8 x 162 cm , 110 x 155 cm
Approximation (trail camera night vision, hyena)
Digital print on aluminium, acrylic glass, cutout display 113.5 x 167.5 cm
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Pattern of Activation (Embryo on Mars)
Digital print on aluminium, acrylic glass, cutout display, digital print on PVC, photography backdrop stand 500 x 260 x 200 Courtesy of the artist;
Pattern of Activation (embryogenesis)
digital print on aluminum, cutout display, acrylic glass worm approx: 247 x134 cm eggs: 70 x 48 cm (each)
Pattern of Activation (eyes of the world)
Digital print on aluminium, cutout display, 2 speakers, baby swing elements, robotic bugs, MP3 player, cable hose, epoxy resin, sound, nail polish, digital print, polyurethane resin, rotating ceiling hook, lace, 7 broken silicon wafers, epoxy clay, nail polish, acrylic case, wooden shelf, video projection. Dimensions variable
Pattern of Activation (biotic crisis)
Digital print on aluminium, cut out display, aluminium, spray paint, 2 digital prints, polyurethane resin, rotating ceiling hook, lace, video projection Dimensions variable
Pattern of Activation (Mamaroo nursery, dawn chorus)
This large installation features a group of six robotic-looking sculptures, a video projection and a sound installation. The sculptures gently move and buzz in front of what appears to be a simple PowerPoint slideshow, their bodies all connected to the power source through what look like long intestinal cords. They are, in fact, repurposed Mamaroo electronic baby swings from the popular brand 4Moms. Despite the fact that they hold things like ruptured birth sacks, the babies they were supposed to be carrying are nowhere to be found. Any elements that might signal their original function are missing: they are decorated in synthetic and organic materials like transparent polyurethane shapes with images of CTI brain scans and protein models, robotic crabs, silicon fish baits, tree fungi, etc. Some of their laser eyes are directed at the projection, whilw others look out into the exhinition space.
Shapeshifter XXVIII
Shapeshifter XXVII
Shapeshifter XXVI
Shapeshifter XXV
Shapeshifter XXIV
Shapeshifter XXIII
Shapeshifter XXII
Shapeshifter XXI
broken silicon wafers, epoxy clay, nail polish, acrylic case, wooden shelf 37 x 25 x 13 cm 14 9/16 x 9 13/16 x 5 1/16 in
Biotic crisis
Digital print, polyurethane resin, rotating ceiling hook 120 x 80 x 0.5 cm Courtesy of the artist; Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin
Eyes of the world
Approximation (C. Elegans, standing couple)
Digital print on aluminum, Cutout display, acrylic glass 214 x 108 x 60 cm Courtesy of the artist;
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Approximation (C. Elegans, hooked)
Digital print on aluminium, Cutout display, acrylic glass 52 x 220 x 6 cm Courtesy of the artist; Kraupa- Tuskany Zeidler Berlin
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Approximation (C. Elegans, long tail)
Digital print on aluminum, Cutout display, acrylic glass 130 x 148 x 6 cm Courtesy of the artist;
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The new surface area, our waking consciousness, that was colonized
Digital print, polyurethane resin, rotating ceiling hook Unique Courtesy of the artist; Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin
Approximation (C. Elegans, hunting)
Digital print on aluminium, acrylic glass, cutout display 90 × 200 × 5 cm Courtesy of the artist;
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Approximation (chimps looking at the trail camera)
2 Digital print on aluminum, Cutout display, acrylic glass 200 x 190 x 40 cm
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Approximation (C. Elegans, wiggly worm)
Digital print on aluminium, acrylic glass, cutout display 219 × 138 × 40 cm Courtesy of the artist;
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Approximation (C. Elegans, standing tall)
Digital print on aluminium, acrylic glass, cutout display 247 × 137 × 40 cm Courtesy of the artist;
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Invasion curve
Digital print, polyurethane resin, rotating ceiling hook 120 x 80 cm 47 3/16 x 31 7/16 ins Unique Courtesy of the artist; Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin
Approximation (5iu4.0 chimera surface ligand, fruit fly)
Digital print on aluminium, acrylic glass, cutout display 250 × 170 × 60 cm Courtesy of the artist; Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler Berlin
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Approximation (5dl5.0 chimera surface ligand, fruit fly)
Digital print on aluminium and acrylic glass, cutout display 166 x 150 x 60 cm Courtesy of the artist; ING Collection
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Approximation (2jk4.0 chimera surface ligand, fruit fly)
Digital print on aluminium, acrylic glass, cutout display 195 × 153 × 60 cm Courtesy of the artist; Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler Berlin
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Approximation (baby mouse)
Digital print on aluminium, acrylic glass, cut out display 310 × 104 × 60 cm
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Approximation (C. Elegans, portal)
2 digital print on aluminium, acrylic glass, cutout display 195 × 300 × 40 cm Courtesy of the artist;
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Energy Release (pink)
Aluminum, airbrush 100 × 90 × 90 cm
Approximation (trail camera night vision, leopard)
Digital print on aluminium, acrylic glass, cut out display 114 × 235 × 30.5 cm
Approximation (polar bear)
Digital print on aluminium, acrylic glass, cut out display 148 × 226 × 38 cm
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Approximation (trail camera night vision, lioness eating an elephant carcass)
Digital print on aluminium, acrylic glass, cut out display 141 × 300 × 45 cm
