Valley, 2020

metal, organic glass

Title: Valley Multichannel video installation. ,,Plastic grass shivers in the hot wind, nearby, in the bushes, growing on the asphalt, kittens slowly explode, one-winged butterflies sometimes fly over them – welcome to the Shifting Valleys.” Somewhere between reality and virtuality in a vibrant landscape, my archaeological research takes place in looking for the consequences of human activity. It is an opportunity to walk around hybridized “wastelands”, in search of “beings” nestled somewhere between reality and imagination, digital and physical, organic and synthetic. This work is based on speculative realism, anthropocene and posthumanism. The idea for this work came from my own environment: In 1981 tanker ,,Globe Asimi” crashed in Baltic sea by Klaipeda’s port, spilled oil was ,,taken” and ,,hidden” in a nearby forest, years later it appeared. I decided to find and explore this damaged area. During my research very bright butterfly appeared and flew over oil swamp shining in rainbow colours, then ,,One winged butterfly” was born. I found ,,Plastic Jellyfish” while walking by the sea, I noticed plastic, looking like grass, ,,growing” from the sand, I was curious about it and decided to pull it out. I found some kind of ,,decaying” plastic material, which reminded me of jellyfish or some kind of space trash. I ”reanimated” it and gave it a movement of swimming jellyfish. ,,Exploding kitten” is another ”being” that I created. It is a catkin with a slow movement of breathing, it swells (breaths in) and looks like it is going to explode, but then it shrinks (breaths out). In one case it is a positive sign of spring and waking nature, in another it is a possible catastrophic explosion (based on climate change philosopher Timothy Morton’s idea, that ecological catastrophe has, in fact, already occurred.) Last ”being” is ”Asphalt bush coral” it is borrowed from my previous work ,,Doxy” where I explored mixed reality phenomenon – life between virtual and physical. I found this bush in internet website called doxyspotting.com, it is a website with a virtual map based on google street views images of prostitutes captured all around the world. The idea of this website is to spot a doxy (a prostitute) in google street views and put it on a map. Most of this website contributors are men, and most frequent locations on the map are deadpockets (places under bridges, wastage of usable space) or non-places by the French anthropologist Marc Auge, so-called transit locations: airports, railway stations and motorways, places where people remain anonymous. I found an image of this bush in one of these deadpockets, it was covered in toilet paper and condoms, it reminded me of coral, so I gave it a waving motion. With this work I want to rethink our relationship with objects, objects as vibrant matter (theory of political theorist and philosopher Jane Bennet). I wonder about new possible forms of flora and fauna created by the merging of physical and virtual world elements (waste products). What kind of “beings” born of this meeting can exist? And how is symbiosis possible with them? This work participated in Bachelor’s final works exhibition ,,we have discovered a secret” in Atletika gallery.