JOTEVA, NG, YANZI, KONEVSKIKH

Eli Joteva + Provides Ng + Artem Konevskikh + Ya Nzi

"Current is a speculation on the future of broadcasting cinema. It emerges from the intersection of contemporary trends in livestream culture, volumetric cinema, AI deep fakes and personalized narratives. The film Current is an experiential example of what this cinema might look and feel like within a few years based on the convergence of these trends. Artificial intelligence increasingly molds the clay of the cinematic image, optimizing its vocabulary to project information in a more dynamic space, embedding data in visuals, and directing a new way of seeing: from planar to global, flat to volumetric, personal to planetary.

‘Current’ experimented with a range of digital technologies that are readily available to any individuals (i.e. livestream data, machine learning, 3D environment reconstruction, ubiquitous computing, pointclouds). It developed a production pipeline using distributed technologies, which provide a means for individuals to reconstruct, navigate and understand event landscapes that are often hidden from us, such as violence in protests, changes in nordic animals behaviors, the handling of trash, etc.. This infinite stack of moving images and its aesthetic are not just supplemental visual effects but imply a new form of distributed economy, where the line of authorship between viewer and producer gets increasingly obscured. We see this open-source cinema as a new form of infrastructure, which circulates attention, visibility and data as its values. This implies an economy that has potential in multiple streams beyond social media, as the content deep learns from itself."

Current

Still from Current, 2020, Film

E l i Joteva

Eli Joteva is a Bulgarian media artist and researcher based in Los Angeles. With a practice rooted in photography and digital media, her work traces the translations between material and virtual planes in an effort to re-imagine the experiences of both human and other-than-human bodies. She holds an MFA from UCLA Design | Media Arts, a BA in Fine Arts from USC Roski and completed The New Normal postgraduate research program at Strelka. She has been a resident artist at Vermont Studio Center, ACRE, Photo+Sphere and an active member of UCLA Art Sci Center | Lab since 2016. She is currently artist in residence at STEAM Imaging III.

Provides Ng

Provides Ng was trained as an architect and a researcher. Her research concerns the emergence of digital tools and their impacts on architecture and urbanism. Her current research discusses how large-scale computation prompts a ‘preemptive urbanism’, where AI and big data are tools to predictively model parallel futures that guide our design strategies. In her design work, she experiments with multimedia narratives and communication technologies, which expands the spectrum of architectural representation.

Artem Konevskikh

Artem Konevskikh studied computer science and then applied this knowledge in the field of experimental particle physics by developing data acquisition systems and doing data analysis for CERN and Institute for Nuclear Research RAS. He is also one of the founders of the makerspace Physics Kunstkamera in Troitsk, Moscow, where he teaches advanced technologies for rapid prototyping and software development. Artem is currently working at Strelka KB, where he is developing urban analysis tools as well as collaborating on artistic and research projects to implement artificial intelligence and neural networks into the design processes.

Yanzi

Yanzi is a multidisciplinary artist based in Moscow. Emerged from the VFX and animation industries, Yanzi specializes in using visual manipulation tools. These digital tools and their side effects are one of his key concerns. In his practice, Yanzi doesn’t stick to a single medium, but chooses what best fits his utterance. Yanzi is interested in technologies, ideology, contemporary mythology, skateboarding, interfaces and crooked-coordinate-systems. On the basis of solid theoretical background, scientific, forensic, and artistic methods are his arsenal for working on modern world issues.