Obedient touch
Kristine Krauze Slucka
In times when knowledge and services are compressed into ready-to-use packages, we slowly turn into ready-to-make subjects ourselves. Functions of a touch-sensitive ruler of time-space are carried out by the first and second fingers of a human hand. It transfers biometric data from the body to the cloud, founding a collection of data for tomorrows politics.
How to experience this obedient touch and how does our existence change depending on whether we accept the terms and conditions or not? There is no middle way. Touch ID-agree. Using large-format analogue media, the artist focuses on the physical transfer of her biometric data to analogue photo paper. Repeating the everyday swiping of fingers over digital devices, photographically dark space is created, in which unique contours of lines and swirling patterns are illuminated.
However, this space-time journey is observed by satellites of various intentions, whose selfish interests are to create the illusion that the choice is in human hands. Don't think, give me your finger! Watch, tap, watch, tap, watch, tap. Look! Click here, here, here, here, here! I know you like it!
“Kristīne Krauze-Slucka is a Latvian artist who appeared on the Latvian art scene relatively recently, in 2017. Despite this, over the years, she has earned considerable professional recognition. In 2020, she received a scholarship from the foundation of the painter Valdemārs Tone and the Nordic and Baltic Young Artist Award, as well as the special prize of the Riga Photography Biennial – NEXT 2021, and published her first photography book “Vibrations of the material universe. Thirst for gold” in collaboration with the Lithuanian publisher “NoRoutine Books”, which appeared in summer 2021.”
Rūdis Bebrišs, Echo Gone Wrong.
Kristīne Krauze-Slucka has obtained a Fine Art Master's degree from the Visual Communication Department of the Latvian Academy of Arts (2020).
In her practice, she studies the relationship between man, technology and nature, paying attention to the processes of adaptation and hybridization, often focusing on the materiality aspects of the chosen media.
In 2021, the exhibition of her work “Obedient Touch” at the Latvian Museum of Photography was nominated for the Purvītis Prize.
www.kristinekrauze.com
Vibrations Of the Material Universe
VIBRATIONS OF THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE. THIRST FOR GOLD, 2020-2021, analogue colour photographs using Kodak Ektacolor RA4 chemical process.
The work seeks to make visible otherwise invisible threat to the biosphere, contributed from analogue photographic image-making, where I slowly create a layer of water on a light-sensitive photographic paper and carefully inject the photo chemicals into it. For me, it serves as a universal gesture, where the aesthetics of hand made pollution is revealed.
Orgatopia
Plants, like humans, are organic structures and experience anxiety resulting from changing external environmental conditions and ecosystem pollution. The installation is a speculative dystopian scenario in which not only the most resistant plants survive, but they are able to create new synergies with inorganic materials and technological mechanisms.
Orgatopia is a manipulative study of the resistance of plants, influencing their physiology by various mechanical methods over several months. By combining these manipulated plants with other inorganic materials and electronic solutions, biomorphic, kinetic hyperobjects are created.
Echo
The more we live in the digital cloud, the more it merges with the physical reality that makes us "online" on our own. This parallel world promises to be instantly connected, where the question arises - with what?
The undeniable presence of the digital environment has not only changed our relationship with physical reality, but has also become a worrying phenomenon at the level of the individual and society, affecting the way we perceive and experience life around us. Photography as a medium has also emerged in the context of technological change, significantly expanding our perceptions. Photography allows us to observe the world more widely, but can it also become a catalyst for new or alternative models of relationships with the environment? Even today, the connection with technology raises the question of whether we, as organic structures, are moving towards loneliness and social alienation, or will we still be able to adapt to the new and artificial state of digital mediation? This parallel world not only actualizes our connection with nature, but also our relationship with personal memories. Can technology replace nostalgia? Rather, does it contribute to the creation of a new world?