Title: The Vibrations of the Material Universe. Golden Thirst

Author: Kristine Krauze-Slucka

Technology: video, analog photographs

Collection: RIXC

Year: 2020

Description: 

Photographs, as social artifacts, transfer fragments of a process in a static format. The development of a photo on a light-sensitive paper is the result of the interaction of chemicals and water.  When human thirst unites after creating new images and using these chemicals to obtain these images, a situational paradox is formed. Suzanne Sontag notes in her essay "On Photography" that photography serves as a shaker of conscience, where the impression - what the all-encompassing presence of photography has on our ethical perception - is unpredictable. Pollution is mutual: both visual and ecological. The symbolic significance of water, on the other hand, has been pretty much mythologized throughout history, which can be reduced to three main aspects: it is a source of life, a means of cleansing and a center of regeneration; but in the context of evolution, it is transforming not only into a technological but also into an economical and political instrument. This is the "new gold of the future".

The work combines the interaction of the materiality of photography and human ecosystematic activity. When photochemical fragments are immersed in water and fixed on light-sensitive photo paper, biomorphic elements are revealed. It just seems that the fixations of this landscape reveal new, unfinished organisms of the future.

Kristīne Krauze-Slucka has a master's degree from the Visual Communication Department of the Latvian Academy of Arts. In her practice, she studies the topic of changes in the relationship between man and nature, paying attention to the processes of adaptation and hybridization, often focusing on the materiality aspects of the chosen media. Participates in exhibitions in Latvia since 2017, including the “Latvian Academy of Arts Century Exhibition” in the exhibition hall ARSENĀLS (2019) of the Latvian National Museum of Art with the work “Obedient Touch”. This year, Kristīne Krauze-Slucka has received a scholarship from the painter Valdemārs Tone Foundation.