MELK gallery
Behzad Farazollahi
The title ‘Tachyoness‘ takes its name from a ‘tachyon’, a hypothetical particle that travels faster than light. In this video work more than a thousand images of sunrises over Ukraine are constructed into a video sequence using AI technology. The images were collected from archives, advertisements, social media, home VHS videos covering the time period from 1990 to 2022. Tachyoness mirrors this historical period of time as a single event. The video work troubles the linear perception of time through the use of ‘machine learning’ that ‘predicts’ the future by means of analysing data from the past. A rising sun is the result of an artificial gaze, where a machine eye watching our human realm and dreaming about a sunrise of its own.
Lesia Vasylchenko (born in Kyiv, Ukraine, and currently based in Oslo, Norway) works across various media, including video, photography, and installation. In her research-based practice, Vasylchenko explores time as an infrastructure, examining the interactions between visual cultures, media technologies, and chronopolitics. Her work reflects on the stagnation of our historical moment and the challenges of overcoming it. Images embody their underlying technologies and singular ideologies, even when not directly visible, as seen in the data extracted by observation satellites or in transparent binary computational infrastructures. These elements have become crucial in propagating the idea of futurity that Modernity envisioned—not only to colonize land and people but the future itself. In her work, we find refuge within this transparency, where physical structures mirror invisible infrastructures. Vasylchenko is the founder of STRUKTURA.Time, a cross-disciplinary initiative for research and practice within visual arts, media archaeology, literature, and philosophy. She holds degrees in Journalism from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and Fine Arts from Oslo National Academy of the Arts. Vasylchenko’s work has recently been exhibited at Kunsthall Oslo, the MUNCH Museum, Henie Onstad Art Center. Her work is also part of the collection at the Museum of Contemporary Art KIASMA / Finnish National Gallery in Helsinki, Finland.
Aprašymas apie instituciją:
MELK is an artist-run initiative for new Scandinavian photography founded by the artists Behzad Farazollahi and Bjarne Bare in 2009. The aim for the initiative is to raise awareness of the scene of contemporary photographers in the region and the position of the medium today, in a contemporary context. Since the opening in 2009 MELK has curated 104 solo exhibitions in their spaces in Oslo, and also organised group exhibitions, talks and seminars in other respected venues such a Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Akershus Kunstsenter, Fotogalleriet, Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium and Astrup Fearnley. They have also been represented internationally in venues including NYC Art Book Fair, Nofound Art Fair Paris and Centro National des Artes in Mexico.
Lesia Vasylchenko, Tachyoness
Video
08min 00s
2022