Alexandra Lerman

Philip Vanderhyden
HD video
Dependency Graph draws together the themes of financial anxiety, developmental psychology, virtual reality, and sexual gratification into a dreamy tableau.

The piece was inspired by the cultural phenomenon of ASMR triggers. ASMR, which stands for “autonomous sensory meridian response” is a pseudo-scientific inquiry that began in the past decade in message boards online and is meant to investigate the triggering mechanisms for low-grade euphoria. ASMR triggers include actions like whispering in someone’s ear, slowly crinkling cellophane, or running a feather of one's arm hair (the “Meridian Response” to which would be one’s hair standing on end).

Dependency Graph is a term used in software engineering to describe cause and effect relationships in sections of code in programs. The association between the title and ASMR was meant to be a cheeky one, but also one that would dig into the real world euphoric effect that many programmers experience when they write a piece of elegant code. In other words, Dependency Graph is about the euphoria of control.

To make this possible, the piece utilizes software designed for and by the entertainment industry. In particular, it puts to use 3D visual effects programs whose central purpose is the creation and manipulation of the geometry of growth and destruction.

Mikhail Maksimov
HD Video, stereo sound, 12 minutes, 2018

“The Death of Father Men” is a neuro crime story based on the principles of machine learning, where the reference information on the murder of Father Alexander Men is used as the initially given parameters, and the vast data on railways and rail transport is taken as training material for the neural network.

Alexander Vladimirovich Men was a Russian Orthodox priest and theologian with modern liberal views. A highly esteemed intellectual during the late 1980s and early 90s he gained popularity in the late 1980s. His open-mindedness created many enemies in the country on the verge of the ideological shift. Father Men was murdered on a Sunday morning, 9 September 1990, by an ax-wielding assailant just outside his home of Semkhoz, Russia.

The 1990s era in Russia began with the death of Father Alexander Men and finished with the closing of the case in 2000. The murder remains unsolved. Nevertheless, in the course of the ten year period, hundreds of crimes were solved in the area of the Semkhoz-Pushkino-Moscow railway line: robbery, rape, murder. Ironically, the brutal murder of Men resulted in lower crime rates along on the entire railway corridor of this particular area of Russia.

Miriam Simun
25 min HD Video with 3-channel sound (3rd channel embedded into custom seating platform)
Your Urge to Breath is a Lie embraces the cephalopod (octopus, squid, cuttlefish, nautilus) as the new model for human evolution, and follows engineers, dancers, and synchronized swimmers laboring to evolve the future of the human species via a psycho-physical training regime. In an ever-more-wetting world, human enhancement lies in cephalopod abilities - embodied cognition, shapeshifting, and distributed intelligence. More than a training document, the work attempts to transcend the flat space of video to instigate corporeal sensation in the audience’s body: an audiovisual work that functions as an intensely sensorial invitation for the audience to join this newly wet, soft and squishy, octopus-inspired way of being in the world.

Miriam Simun
25 min HD Video with 3-channel sound (3rd channel embedded into custom seating platform)
Your Urge to Breath is a Lie embraces the cephalopod (octopus, squid, cuttlefish, nautilus) as the new model for human evolution, and follows engineers, dancers, and synchronized swimmers laboring to evolve the future of the human species via a psycho-physical training regime. In an ever-more-wetting world, human enhancement lies in cephalopod abilities - embodied cognition, shapeshifting, and distributed intelligence. More than a training document, the work attempts to transcend the flat space of video to instigate corporeal sensation in the audience’s body: an audiovisual work that functions as an intensely sensorial invitation for the audience to join this newly wet, soft and squishy, octopus-inspired way of being in the world.

Blake Rayne
Pyrex bowl, video projector, video, 108 min loop
Yogurt Cinema is a looping digital file projected onto live set Greek yogurt culture strained and in the process of becoming cheese.

The sculpture is meant to create an awareness of time-lapse – a state suspended in between, between the end of the credits and exiting the cinema, when the project has ended and social interactions are exhausted, before anticipation.

Blake Rayne
Pyrex bowl, video projector, video, 108 min loop
Yogurt Cinema is a looping digital file projected onto live set Greek yogurt culture strained and in the process of becoming cheese.

The sculpture is meant to create an awareness of time-lapse – a state suspended in between, between the end of the credits and exiting the cinema, when the project has ended and social interactions are exhausted, before anticipation.

Blake Rayne
Pyrex bowl, video projector, video, 108 min loop
Yogurt Cinema is a looping digital file projected onto live set Greek yogurt culture strained and in the process of becoming cheese.

The sculpture is meant to create an awareness of time-lapse – a state suspended in between, between the end of the credits and exiting the cinema, when the project has ended and social interactions are exhausted, before anticipation.

Blake Rayne
Pyrex bowl, video projector, video, 108 min loop
Yogurt Cinema is a looping digital file projected onto live set Greek yogurt culture strained and in the process of becoming cheese.

The sculpture is meant to create an awareness of time-lapse – a state suspended in between, between the end of the credits and exiting the cinema, when the project has ended and social interactions are exhausted, before anticipation.

Mikhail Maksimov
HD Video, stereo sound, 12 minutes, 2018

“The Death of Father Men” is a neuro crime story based on the principles of machine learning, where the reference information on the murder of Father Alexander Men is used as the initially given parameters, and the vast data on railways and rail transport is taken as training material for the neural network.

Alexander Vladimirovich Men was a Russian Orthodox priest and theologian with modern liberal views. A highly esteemed intellectual during the late 1980s and early 90s he gained popularity in the late 1980s. His open-mindedness created many enemies in the country on the verge of the ideological shift. Father Men was murdered on a Sunday morning, 9 September 1990, by an ax-wielding assailant just outside his home of Semkhoz, Russia.

The 1990s era in Russia began with the death of Father Alexander Men and finished with the closing of the case in 2000. The murder remains unsolved. Nevertheless, in the course of the ten year period, hundreds of crimes were solved in the area of the Semkhoz-Pushkino-Moscow railway line: robbery, rape, murder. Ironically, the brutal murder of Men resulted in lower crime rates along on the entire railway corridor of this particular area of Russia.

Molly Lowe
HD Video, 2013, 6 min
Formed sucks you into a nightmarish journey of mercurial images and vignettes that get into the darker corners of how we deeply coexist with the media around us.

Philip Vanderhyden
HD video
Dependency Graph draws together the themes of financial anxiety, developmental psychology, virtual reality, and sexual gratification into a dreamy tableau.

The piece was inspired by the cultural phenomenon of ASMR triggers. ASMR, which stands for “autonomous sensory meridian response” is a pseudo-scientific inquiry that began in the past decade in message boards online and is meant to investigate the triggering mechanisms for low-grade euphoria. ASMR triggers include actions like whispering in someone’s ear, slowly crinkling cellophane, or running a feather of one's arm hair (the “Meridian Response” to which would be one’s hair standing on end).

Dependency Graph is a term used in software engineering to describe cause and effect relationships in sections of code in programs. The association between the title and ASMR was meant to be a cheeky one, but also one that would dig into the real world euphoric effect that many programmers experience when they write a piece of elegant code. In other words, Dependency Graph is about the euphoria of control.

To make this possible, the piece utilizes software designed for and by the entertainment industry. In particular, it puts to use 3D visual effects programs whose central purpose is the creation and manipulation of the geometry of growth and destruction.

Philip Vanderhyden
HD video
Dependency Graph draws together the themes of financial anxiety, developmental psychology, virtual reality, and sexual gratification into a dreamy tableau.

The piece was inspired by the cultural phenomenon of ASMR triggers. ASMR, which stands for “autonomous sensory meridian response” is a pseudo-scientific inquiry that began in the past decade in message boards online and is meant to investigate the triggering mechanisms for low-grade euphoria. ASMR triggers include actions like whispering in someone’s ear, slowly crinkling cellophane, or running a feather of one's arm hair (the “Meridian Response” to which would be one’s hair standing on end).

Dependency Graph is a term used in software engineering to describe cause and effect relationships in sections of code in programs. The association between the title and ASMR was meant to be a cheeky one, but also one that would dig into the real world euphoric effect that many programmers experience when they write a piece of elegant code. In other words, Dependency Graph is about the euphoria of control.

To make this possible, the piece utilizes software designed for and by the entertainment industry. In particular, it puts to use 3D visual effects programs whose central purpose is the creation and manipulation of the geometry of growth and destruction.

Maria Antelman
Vertical HD Video with Sound, 4:30 min, 2018
A disassembler is a reverse engineering tool, a computer program that translates machine language (code) into assembly language for humans to understand. The Disassembler video presents technical instructions along with experiences from the organic world. Visually, the video shows a series of photomontages, animations, sculptures, and portraits created with natural materials, organic elements, animal parts, earth constructions, etc. The audio portion of the video is composed of the technical specifications of a newly patented wristband for Amazon’s warehouse workers. The wristband is designed to control and monitor every movement of the worker’s hands for optimized performance. With the juxtaposition of these disparate sources, The Disassembler raises questions about the physical and psychological impact that the automated industry exerts on the human body and society. Finally, it confronts a post-automated experience, where bodies and gestures return to an organic, experiential world.

Miriam Simun
25 min HD Video with 3-channel sound (3rd channel embedded into custom seating platform)
Your Urge to Breath is a Lie embraces the cephalopod (octopus, squid, cuttlefish, nautilus) as the new model for human evolution, and follows engineers, dancers, and synchronized swimmers laboring to evolve the future of the human species via a psycho-physical training regime. In an ever-more-wetting world, human enhancement lies in cephalopod abilities - embodied cognition, shapeshifting, and distributed intelligence. More than a training document, the work attempts to transcend the flat space of video to instigate corporeal sensation in the audience’s body: an audiovisual work that functions as an intensely sensorial invitation for the audience to join this newly wet, soft and squishy, octopus-inspired way of being in the world.