Oleg Elagin
The Unknown Technician
Digital video / loop / 4:3
Experimental film by an unknown movie technician. Edited film footage, 1960s. Found and restored by the artist.
Media artist, musician.
Born in Samara in 1982.
Location: Samara
Graduated from the Samara State Communication Academy (2004),Independent School of Contemporary Art (2006), The art grant on training in Germany (Stuttgarter kunstverein e.v.,Stuttgart. Germany) (2014)
The main object of attention of media-artist Oleg Elagin is areflection of absolutely de-humanized art, made by means of digital technologies. He’s from a cohort of artists – the“alchimists”, assiduous experimenters with the internaltexture, the “body” of the artwork. In his case it is the nonmaterial, digital texture of media. Working in the genre of video art, the artist fills his artworks with visual and sound effects to deform chosen fragment of reality, or create some new image that loose connection with the objective world.
The most attractive themes for Elagin are “mistake”,“malfunction”, and “information noise”. No other artist could scarcely contemplate the screen noise with such sincerity as he does. The system of failure has an interest for him as a self sufficient and self-valued effect, having it’s own visual potential. What is the way of constructing reality for such kind of art? What consistent patterns in the viewer’s reception of this art are possible? These are the basic questions, which interest the artist.