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Alexandra Dementieva

Limited Spaces N2
On approaching the piece, the viewer must mount a bicycle and start pedaling at a suitable and steady speed — only then will the projection of a film onto the screen start. In order to watch the film to the end one has to continue cycling without stopping. This work is built around a performance, produced by two actors: a man riding a bicycle and a woman, who, concealed behind the screen, moves depending on the man’s velocity, unintentionally creating changing reliefs which resemble sculptures. The abusive nature of the relationship embodied in the performance clearly draws on the ancient Greek myth about sculptor Pygmalion and his “artwork” Galatea on the one hand, and on the other references more contemporary feminist discourse, something to which the artist is far from being indifferent. The faster the man pedals, the faster and more forcedly the woman moves. Few trained artists could withstand such a speed.

Yuge Zhou

Underground Circuit
Underground Circuit is a collage of hundreds of video clips shot in the subway stations in New York. Station to station, the movement of the commuters in the outer rings suggests the repetitive cycle of life and urban theatricality and texture. The inner-most ring includes people sitting on the bench waiting; the central drummers act as the controller of the movement, inspired by the concept of the Four-faced Buddha in Chinese folk religion, the god who can fulfill and grant all wishes of its devotees. For the installation, the video is projected onto the gallery floor and mapped onto a cube with relief in the middle of the projection area. The installation invites audiences to sit on the central cube as Voyeur-gods, to observe the anonymous characters in the projected urban labyrinth.