Accelerationism is a political movement that calls to accelerate capitalist processes in order to generate radical social change. This controversial trend which is poorly known in Russia attracted the attention of Alexander Sedelnikov while studying at the Pratt Institute in New York. The texts of iconic accelerationists and the capitalist capital of the world burst into the artist's life at increased speeds and led to the creation of the Accelerate project.
Among the photos 3 blocks can be distinguished: collages - the layering of visual images and screenshots of applications designed to track a person's biometric data (pedometer, sleep analyzers, and others); people - portraits, dissolved/imprisoned in the scenery of the city; structure - vibrations of space and random patterns of the environment.
Alexander Sedelnikov worked on the project from 2018 to 2019, summing up the installation in his studio. The documentation for this impromptu exhibition is presented in the INSTALLATION section. Viewing room has become a digital transformation of the project, in which already familiar puzzles have made a new panel, keeping the roll call with a distant New York studio. The printed pictures are back in digital format, and the strip physically drawn on the walls now cuts the screen.
The project Accelerate explores a production and materiality of the visual material, the relationship between human and artificial, a critical and transforming state of the body within the capitalist system through personal experience and praxis.
The title of the work refers to the provocative concept of accelerationism, which I consider as a data constellation that leads to a reality transformation and the need for an alternative discourse. Besides that, I'm questioning a dangerous aspect of the power which is appropriating basic human needs (e.g. the sleeping process, privacy, etc.) and technologically controlling them in order to mechanize labor.
THE STRUCTURE
Elements, objects, textures, and patterns have to be interpreted through the understanding of the actual perception of how the space is vibrating, constituting the virtual matter, and expressing spatio-temporal anomalies. In my case, while looking at those specific states of changes, I am trying to catch the abnormal tendencies between the space and the human's body, as well as to use them as algorithms for improving my practice.
THE HUMAN
The individual is inside or outside, walking through, turning their back, covering their face or body parts. The individual is at the center of the project, impersonal, anonymous, transparent, vulnerable, and fragile. The individual encapsulates the immanence and the transcendence. I am inside their substance – individual.
THE INSTALLATION
To create the installation Accelerate, Alexander Sedelnikov combined photographs, text, and objects in order to build a minimalistic environment. The objects occupied the corners of the space and indicated something like “dead ends”. Images and texts function as a methodology for uncovering the problem of the project and programming the position of the observer.
About the artist
Alexander Sedelnikov (b. 1986)
Russian artist, working with photography, video, and installations.
Alexander studied at the Pratt Institute (New York, 2019), the Gerrit Rietveld Academy (Amsterdam, 2015), was a member of the educational program of the "PhotoDepartament” Foundation (St. Petersburg, 2012). He took part in personal and group exhibitions in Russia, the Netherlands, Germany, England, Poland, USA. His works have been published in such publications as Extra Extra, De Gids, Calvert journal, Stedelijk Studies, De Groene Amsterdammer, Metropolis M, Martinez Gallery books.