Process Anatomy #3: Natalia Jordanova. Present Myths or: Sixteen posters of nonexistent people and donkeys, watching a film trailer

Natalia Jordanova. Deep, 2022, pigment prints on dibond, acrylic pen, 100 x 80 cm

Natalia Jordanova. Daydream, 2022, pigment prints on dibond, acrylic pen, 100 x 80 cm

Natalia Jordanova. Reality, 2022, pigment prints on dibond, acrylic pen, 100 x 80 cm

Natalia Jordanova. Opening, 2022, pigment prints on dibond, acrylic pen, 100 x 80 cmNatalia Jordanova. Opening, 2022, pigment prints on dibond, acrylic pen, 100 x 80 cm

Natalia Jordanova. ality:re, 2022, pigment prints on dibond, acrylic pen, 100 x 80 cm

Natalia Jordanova. ality:re, 2022, pigment prints on dibond, acrylic pen, 100 x 80 cmNatalia Jordanova. The O, 2022, pigment prints on dibond, acrylic pen, 100 x 80 cm

Natalia Jordanova. ality:re, 2022, pigment prints on dibond, acrylic pen, 100 x 80 cmNatalia Jordanova. The Opening Scene, 2022, pigment prints on dibond, acrylic pen, 100 x 80 cm

Natalia Jordanova. S, 2022, pigment prints on dibond, acrylic pen, 100 x 80 cm

Natalia Jordanova. C, 2022, pigment prints on dibond, acrylic pen, 100 x 80 cm

Natalia Jordanova. E, 2022, pigment prints on dibond, acrylic pen, 100 x 80 cm

Natalia Jordanova. N, 2022, pigment prints on dibond, acrylic pen, 100 x 80 cm

Natalia Jordanova. E2, 2022, pigment prints on dibond, acrylic pen, 100 x 80 cm

Natalia Jordanova. Deep Deep O, 2022, pigment prints on dibond, acrylic pen, 100 x 80 cm

Natalia Jordanova. ep day, 2022, pigment prints on dibond, acrylic pen, 100 x 80 cm

Natalia Jordanova. dream dream, 2022, pigment prints on dibond, acrylic pen, 100 x 80 cm

Natalia Jordanova. A nonexistent human and donkeys, 2022, pigment prints on dibond, acrylic pen, 100 x 80 cm

Natalia Jordanova. Deep Daydream Trailer, 2022, video still

STRUCTURA PROJECT ROOM

Over the past year, Natalia Jordanova has been developing her largest video installation to date, Deep daydream-reality: the Opening Scene, which is due to premiere in early 2023. In it, she explores the idea of myth in cinema, and through her interdisciplinary approach, the installation medium as a “cinematographic situation”. The project speculates on possible narratives through the form̀ of cinema, involving different “voices” and creating a world in which the human is not at the centre. In the language of cinema, the fictional becomes possible through the interpretation of myth. It is both a past ontology and a model and structure for constructing a film work in the present.

The current exhibition, Present Myths or: Sixteen posters of nonexistent people and donkeys, watching a film trailer, is the third part of the curatorial project ‘Process Anatomy’. Within it, Natalia inverts the typical paradigm of creating and presenting art, in which the steps in developing the work often fade into the background. Here, the process becomes the concept and the work, and the exhibition is the medium through which we access it. She achieves this by employing formats that are part of the semantics of cinema, that being the film trailer and poster. In line with the exhibition’s concept, the trailer is constructed from the film footage shot in the process and simultaneously exists autonomously. The advance showing is an intermediate outcome, including materials that reach the audience and suggest that this footage may be lost in the process and that it remains the only evidence. By anticipating the final work, the trailer creates the myth of it.

In the space, we find a screen that cyclically repeats the moving image. Regardless of whether an observer is present, the video is under constant surveillance by non-existent viewers. They are characters imagined by artificial intelligence with which Natalia collaborates to generate the film projected at the donkey farm. We are witnessing an ecosystem in which humans, technology and animals are in a state of flux and shifting positions. This post-anthropocentric idea re-examines our relationship with the surrounding world and inverts the nature of reality. It demonstrates not so much their interchangeability but rather the potential for all agents to be seen as equals.

In the context of the curatorial framework, Natalia’s practice intuitively engages with theoretical areas of philosophy. Her works appear as hypotheses providing a basis for reflections on the nature of being and the ideas of post-anthropocentrism. While she does not ignore the possibility of a dystopian outcome, the artist presents us with a techno-optimistic vision that acknowledges the influence of technology to drastically alter the meaning of what it is to be human. She leads us to experience and reflects on a speculative reality in which feelings of fear, unsettlement, optimism and excitement can manifest simultaneously. This conflict is at the core of man as a complex being and is part of his constant transformation.

*

Natalia Jordanova (born in 1991, Sofia, Bulgaria) is an Amsterdam-based artist. As part of an ever-developing quest for possible worlds, Natalia’s artistic practice is a subjective synthesis and material proposition of what defines the present moment. She builds context-aware installations through her interdisciplinary approach and deployment of various practices.

She holds an MA from the Dirty Art department of Sandberg Institute in The Netherlands (2020), BA in Fine Arts from Royal Academy of Art in The Hague (2018), BA in Photography from the National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts in Bulgaria (2013). Her work was exhibited in various exhibitions in The Netherlands, Belgium, Bulgaria and the UK.

The project is realized with the financial support of the National Culture Fund.
Graphic Design: Yana Abrasheva

Images