Alexandra Mitlyanskaya

Was born in Moscow, graduated from the Moscow institute of Graphic Arts. She was grand holder of Berlin Academy of Arts (1995). She had grants for helding master classes in TAFTS, Harvard Univesities and in Parson’s The New School of Design (2008 – 2009). In 2011 she was winner of “Now &After” videofestival. Her works are in collections of Tretyakov Gallery, The State Russian Museum, MMOMA, NCCA, ROSPHOTO. Lives and works in Moscow.

Between past and future
The project (videos of different years) creates the illusion that three things are absent: time, narrative and authorship. Time is unidirectional and linear. The keenness of its perception is directly dependent on the degree of motion in a frame. The less motion, the stronger the effect of timelessness is. The shorter the dynamic cycle and the faster the direct motion turns into the circular, then the more inevitable “now” is forever hanging between past and future, merging with “always.” In the world of “now-always” the emergence of plots is almost unimaginable, here there are only sprouts of a narrative. The lack of intensive narrative is compensated by the scattering of its growth. The author seems to be absent, no one takes the place of the viewer and there is nothing preventing him from his illusion that he sees the real world, available only to him. Such video pictures are exactly the images of one’s consciousness, which endlessly revolve in one’s head or transform into just barely animated static states. They are like memories or mirages of the future. In this way, the video can be perceived either as a simple fragment of reality or as a projection of the viewer’s inner word. The exposition’s very emotionally nuanced character permits it to be divided into two special zones, corresponding to the floors of the museum: the “upper” and the “lower” worlds.