Unknown ExceptionS
BY Aleksei Kazantsev
Unknown exception is an unforeseen deviation in the program's operation, a system failure. For survival in the modern world, it is essential to have the assurance that it is orderly, explainable, and dependent on us. However, once we begin to doubt the familiar, to suspect the ordinary of being illusory, that suspicion never lets go. And then it turns out that reality persistently offers to play, and the everyday landscape holds phantom visions and unpredictable glitches. The process of creating the series "Unknown Exceptions" was akin to performing a ritual with an unforeseen outcome. The project began with repeated visits to the same place on the outskirts of the city, somewhere between a park and a forest. Completely deserted in the twilight, it felt like a dream ready to generate phantoms. To bring them out, I created artificial anomalies using my own body, simple materials, and light structures. Repeated, monotonous attempts to capture the same frame immersed me in a trance-like state. Gradually, I transformed into a shapeless figure wandering in almost complete darkness... These experiments allowed me to document the (im)possible, what the human eye cannot perceive, making technology a mediator between the real and the phantom, between the physiology of twilight vision and our fantasies.
Artist statement
Bio
Aleksei Kazantsev is a visual artist working in the medium of photography. Born in Belarus, lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium. Aleksei studied photography at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. His work intuitively and narratively stems from the visual heritage of archetypal images, as well as our collective unconscious memory, symbolism, hypnotic states, trance, liminal states of mind. The artist looks for a twist in reality. Using altered perspectives and distorted vision, he moves you to feel disorientation and to recognize the uncanny. Exhibited in various galleries across Europe: Belgium (L'Enfant Sauvage, Pulsar, LWM18, National 55, Archiraar Gallery, Liège Photobook Festival, L'image sans nom, PAK-Gistel, Psychiatric Center Sint-Amandus); UK (pic.london festival, The Minories Galleries); Poland (Arsenal Gallery, Fundacia Villa Sokrates, Gray Mandorla Studio).
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