«..a little while ago I started a project which I can assign as performative or even collaborative. It involves my part as a creator of the initial image – straight, nonmodified, digital, and partly abstract photograph; then I suggest a machine interpret my proposal according to its own decision. The result which appears in a text form then helps to find a match throughout a multiplicity of text sources. The "Deep Eating" is a visual homage to John Divola's "The Green of this Notebook". This work was made in the late 1990s on the West Coast of the United States and closely relates to individual artistic experiences generalized further…
Can we claim that the machine has its own Umwelt? To reveal this, at least to try to enter it, I supply a machine with different images constructed depicting eatable elements. I eliminate the normal appearance of objects, deconstruct the image to the threshold of abstraction. Nonetheless, the human's eye remains still capable of detecting the deconstructed image, it focuses on the materiality of an organic substance, an eatable substance faster than on the surrounding elements. The machine has another logic. Sometimes it's even imperceptible to explain it, but, for sure, it doesn't come out randomly. If we reverse the sequence of conversion it will give an awareness of how different the machine can percept the world around…»
Ksenia Yurkova (1984) is an artist, curator, and researcher. Her leading artistic media is text, photography, video, and installation. The main focus of interest is communication and language: the varieties of its substance, the possibility of conversion, mythological aspects, stereotyping (personal and political identification), problems of memory, attitudes, and reliance. Lately, the artist has researched the phenomenon of affect in its autonomous bodily emanation; in personal and political registers. Yurkova has taken part in numerous shows and festivals worldwide and has been awarded several stipends. Her works are in public and private collections, mainly in Russia, Germany, France, Finland, and Austria. At present, Yurkova operates AIR InSILo (Austria).
