New references: Boris Groys and Jan van Eyck

Last half a year was a hectic experience including work on three commercial projects withn the agency, one private on my own, reworking our rented flat in Moscow and travelling for work reasons loads. Nevertheless, I do feel that I need to go on with my own research and for this reason have started producing some new sketches recently, which I inted to post soon.

I have been reading 'Politics of Installation' by Boris Groys, which brought me to another point of seeing my work. Previously I was more interesed in investigating sensations formed by the engagement of the viewer and the space. Nevertheless, this process presupposed not only physical intervention, but viewing an image.

In regard to the space of the installation, Groys points out that it is not a circulating space a as conventional space of the museum is. This space is transformed into an art object, hence being 'the material support of the installation medium'. He also states that among all the practices the installation lets us experience being here and now, while the video depicts the happened. Nevertheless while we participate in the space of the installation here and now, we gaze at the installed pieces, which could be videos or images. In this way, could we be positioned as merely viewres of the depicted or could we participate in both spaces simultaneusly, even if one depicts the past?

Below is a well-known painting by Jan Van Eyck 'The Arnolfini Portrait'. 

'The Arnolfini Portrait' by Jan van Eyck, 1514
Original Image Here

Convex mirror is the focal point in this painting. Georges Teyssot states that the mirror 'multiplies and interiorizes'. He states that it 'offers a clear analogy between vision and mirror...the eye is a mirror, the mirror is an eye - the mirror captures the image of things; it frames the visible by collectng the diversity of the world into the unity of it vision...the mirror also provides the matphor of the gaze'. This mise en abyme technique is of an interest for me as in this work the view appearing in the reflection, controversally to Brunellesch's experiment, is positioned behind the possible position of the viewer and his eye. It reflects the world around and in a way places us within the space of the painting as we are to view the couple from the position of the painter, who is supposingly one of the figuers reflected in the mirror. Thus, the viewer could be said to become a participant of this space and this space outside the plane could be said to be a part of the artwork.

Mirror close-up, 'The Arnolfini Portrait' by Jan van Eyck, 1514
Original Image Here

In the context of my work, the image is a part of the installation. In this way, the installation space could only be one of the spaces as there always will be another space, which is the space of a mirrored perspective.