UKRAINIAN PAVILION

Curator: Dr . Lyudmyla Bereznytska

Artist: Victor Sydorenko

AUTHENTIFICATION 2006 -Multimedia project

Among the new Ukrainian projects that are interesting for me from the point of view of curator and art critic, I have chosen the one, which is really able not only to get considerable response in the local cultural milieu, but, moreover, to high light the existence of important artists and innovative socio cultural environment in Ukraine. The new project by one of the leading Ukrainian artist Victor Sydorenko presents media synthesis-performance, which takes place in a gallery as consequence of diversity of spatial arrangement and interaction of different objects, specific materials and technologies. The performance, directed by the artist, is based on static forms, which corre late with each other to produce the impression of greatness and volume, while clearly designated accents serve as starting points. It's peculiarity is determined by the use of unique scintillating polymers, invented by Ukrainian scientists and amazingly employed for creation of the pivota l part of the project. The luminescent effect is achieved by means of invisible ultraviolet radiation. Multimedia and polysemantic were initially conceived as the basis for the openness of project ideas to interpretations and discussion. The project combines four absolutely independent, mature and integral ideas, which further interweave in space and get quite different meaning. Any of these ideas, depending on the choice of the viewer, can become the starting and determinative. The part entitled “authentication” translates the thoughts and feelings of young artist, his first sensations of inconsistency between him and the abstract “Other” – the external power, towering over individual's world. In order to describe this state, the author adresses his own experience of army service. He feels like he is awkward and immature in comparison to adjusted and efficient plasticity of the collective. It is presumed that personal might be confronted with the group process coming from the life of the socium. The artist suggests us the view on the process of growing accustomed to the “Other”, realized as specific castration of individual plastic gestures, self-destruction and violence, voluntarily accepted as a way to become similar to certain universal plastic form, helping to conceal one's difference from others. Photo project visualizes the process of de-personalization of junction to the absolute (the “Other”) through the ritual . Initiation leads to gradual absorption of the individual by the mass, thus turning the part into the whole, symbolizing the process of uniting with the universal . However, photo performance can be interpreted in different way – as escape from the absolute into one's internal world, which is tightly closed for external gaze. The well - learned gesture remains the only thing on the surface. The result is construction of specific image of plastic hypocrisy, which protects individual from external social aggression. But where is the criterion ? Where is the sphere that embraces this “absolute”, imitated and appropriated by individuals? This constitutes the pivotal part of the project. This point also manifests the relativity of author's idea, which stimulates the similar approach to interpretation on the part of the viewer. It redirects us to research the sensual side of contemporary world, the problems of co-existence of global and local tendencies in socium, as well as to the quest of the source of individual's internal freedom and integrity of the self as humanistic platform for the socium. The author leaves us the freedom to choose the positive trajectory of development – starting from the individual as the measure or universal code of authentication. The goal is to make the individual realize him/herself as criterion and basis for the “Other”, as its necessary creative part. Diversity and multimedia character of the author's ideas and technologies not only create original artistic image, but also define overall character of the project. Interactivity, dialogue and current importance are most important achievements of Victor Sydorenko, which brought the great success of “Authentication” in Ukraine . Presented to the viewer as an image, it is open to any excursus and discourses: from authentication to personification, and vice versa, to the self and personal victory over conventionalities. It makes possible to synthesize both aspects in a sense of freedom, defined by individual as the self.

Dr . Lyudmyla Bereznytska