Stainless steel, computer programming, photodiode spotlight, microcontrol units
“Light exerts physical pressure on objects in its path, a phenomenon which can be deduced by Maxwell’s equations, but can be more easily explained by the particle their irregular shapes as on the vanes of a windmill…” (Wikipedia) The artists approach the myth of the daughter of Acrisius and god Zeus as a most beautiful illustration of the life-giving force of «immaterial» in art. Danae is a multimedia object-sculpture made of «live» round mirrors that quiver.
In the installation, the artists connected the algorithm of movement of light with the algorithm of movement of a viewer’s eye over the Rembrandt’s painting. The mirror’s quivering and the trembling reflection of light from its surface create a sensual, erotic context of the object’s perception. In all ages, scientists and artists strived to represent mundane as mysterious, and mysterious — nature of light: photons strike and transfer their momentum. At scales, light pressure can cause asteroids to spin faster, acting on from the touch of a ray of light on their surface. The sculpture’s general outline can be correlated with the figure of Diana in Rembrandt’s paining in the Hermitage visible. It is no accident that one o f the asteroids that rush about the Universe in search of living light was called Danae.
Artist. Born in 1949 in Leningrad, USSR. Graduated from the Ilya Repin State Academic Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (Leningrad, USSR). Works in the fields of philosophy, psychology, painting, drawing, sculpture and installations. Professor of drawing at the Ilya Repin Institute. Recipient of Sergey Kuryokhin Award (Russia, 2012) as “Best Work of Visual Art” (together with Elena Gubanova). His works were exhibited at major Russian and foreign venues, including the Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia), Russian Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia), Museum of Moscow (Moscow, Russia), Chelsea Art Museum (New York, USA), Kunstquartier Bethanien (Berlin, Germany), Sky Gallery 2 (Tokyo, Japan). Participant of the Manifesta 10 parallel program (St. Petersburg, Russia, 2014) and several exhibitions parallel to Venice Biennale (biannually since 2011). Since 1990, he has been working in collaboration with Elena Gubanova. Lives and works in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Elena Gubanova
Artist, curator. Born in 1960 in Ulyanovsk, USSR. Graduated from the Ilya Repin State Academic Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (Leningrad, USSR). Works in the fields of painting, sculpture, installations, and video. Recipient of Sergey Kuryokhin Award (Russia, 2012) as “Best Work of Visual Art” (together with Ivan Govorkov). Her works were exhibited at major Russian and foreign venues, including the Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia), the Russian Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia), Museum of Moscow (Moscow, Russia), Chelsea Art Museum (New York, USA), Kunstquartier Bethanien (Berlin, Germany). Participant of the Manifesta 10 parallel program (St. Petersburg, Russia, 2014) and several exhibitions parallel to Venice Biennale (biannually since 2011). Since 1990, she has been working in collaboration with Ivan Govorkov. Lives and works in St. Petersburg, Russia.
www.elenagubanova.com