Bio

Interdisciplinary artist Egor Kraft (b. 1986 in St. Petersburg, Russia) currently lives and works in Moscow, Vienna and Berlin. Having acquired his basic education in Fine Arts in Swedish foundation Art School Gerlesborgsskolan, he continued studies in Arts & Digital Media at the Moscow Rodchenko Art School (BA), The Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (MA), followed by an Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design in London (MA scholarshipand) and lastly ‘The New Normal’ Postgraduate research programme at Strelka Institute in Moscow. He participated in The 5th and 2nd Moscow International Biennials for Young Art, 1st Ukranian Biennale ‘Arsenale’, Manifesta 10, Parallel Vienna and international exhibitions, screenings and festivals across Australia, Europe, South America, US and the UK. Egor has held three solo ex­hi­bi­tions in Swe­den, Rus­sia and Es­to­nia, was nom­i­nated for var­i­ous prizes in­clud­ing the State In­no­va­tion Art Prize (New Generation), Kuryokhin Prize (Young Artist of the Year) and Creative Enterprise Award initiated by University of Arts, London. His works are included private European and US collection and Russian museum collections, he worked on commissioned projects for Moscow Tretyakov State Gallery, Vi­enna Art Fair and Her­mitage Mu­seum. Egor was nominated CEC Artslink (NYC, USA) Grant Fellowship in 2018.
In 2017 he was included in the New East 100, a list of people, places and projects shaping our world today by London based Calvert Journal.

 

Description of practice

How does one distinguish between the real and virtual? Is virtual as real as anything else we might consider? Should one ponder this question: given that virtuality is just a surface effect produced by actual causal interactions at the material level, isn’t there’s a chain of bulky physical processes behind every apparently virtual event? Taking place in geopolitical environment ‘the virtual’ plays an enormous role in the organisation of physical matter and space, governing it in accordance to the principles and protocols operating on mathematical logic, semiotics of code, discrete order and quantified variables. Thus at the level of potentialities just about anything becomes augmented with such discrete processes.
The question in focus here is: how we; as beings with tendencies to think and act according to our own, seemingly irrational, internal, hidden and subconscious reasoning; will co-exist with a ubiquitous machinic rationality? Towards which we are headed at the accelerating pace of the Anthropocene.
In my current practice I often explore the emerging territories and possibilities of communication and their correlations to topics such as information, identity, chaos vs. order, time and perception. I aim to juxtapose these perennial questions to the ways in which we organise power and infrastructures, and explore the roles of contemporary technologies in these processes.
As an artistic method I look for ways to produce work which sit on the boundaries between reality and its misrepresentation, exploring reality’s perversion and the consequences. I raise questions about representations of reality and their impossible task, due to the nature of communication as a flawed means. I’m interested in investigating how media advancements affect and influence our fragmented perception of reality and intervene with its seemingly invincible logic, while shaping economies, politics, morals, ethic and aesthetic values.

Contact Details

Studio
Tempelhofer Ufer 10
10963, Berlin–Kreuzberg, Germany

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