A visual project in collaboration with an artist Ksusha Tuleneva. In that zine we was exploring a process of percepting: how scientific pattern recognition can be interlaced with the sense of beauty, the shift between scientific (rational) and artistic (irrational) in a contact with natural forms. Project inspired by a scientific expedition to Svalbard i had in 2016.
The project has started from observations i shared in a long audio notes with Ksusha while flying over Svalbard landscapes as a part of my geomorphological study in 2016. I was focusing on a curious combination of two elements: 1 — emotional responses from the beauty of the periglacial landscapes covered in snow; 2 — uncontrollable recognition of geomorphological patterns that my brain was performing. The competition of those two forms of seeing natural environment became a starting point for the project.
As a researcher, I involuntarily evaluate why the landscape looks a certain way, what specific physical processes influenced it; I use ready-made templates in my brain, since it is faster and more convenient. The following question was: does this method of perception hinder me as a researcher? How impartial am I? And, most importantly, does this built-in function of classifying reality prevent me from actually seeing beauty? I was sharing that observations with Ksusha who listen with curiosuty about geographical research methods, maps, space photographs, isolines. And so, with the help of audio messages and long discussions, we found a plane of interest to both of us — photographs of landscapes, embroidery on photographs, imitation of isolines. And all this was united by the interaction of two views — scientific and artistic. Here you can see the creative process that followed that discussions:
The most important outcome of that collaboration was the process consisted of two parts: poetic but still scientific and consequential texts I had prepared, and then the act of breaking it apart initiated by Ksusha. That was the key method we found out during the process — bringing knowledge and play to the process without fear to loose the meaning. That is where geomorphological information was turned into embroidery performed by Ksusha:
Thanks to that play we risked not only talk about knowledge about landscape, but also to reflect on topics that are much more controversial, like the brain and its patterns, the classification of reality and the difference in the perception of the same object by a researcher and an artist. In one, the landscape is the sum of its characteristics (shape, slope, soil, history of formation, vegetation cover, etc.), and in the other — an object of beauty with mesmerizing lines and color transitions.
The one-picture overview of that playful project you can find on the last page: a phrase that supposed to tell the process of researched, but, being cut that way by accident, saying in russian «the researcher is you»
