Artist: Andrey and Aleksey Kulibin
Title: Demeter XXI, The Epoch series, Edition of 21
Year: 2021
Medium: Sculpture
Style: Figurative Art, Concept art
Materails: Mixed media; Wood (oak veneer, birch plywood), baguette frame, mirror material, flock fabric, acrylic paint
Height: 110 cm
Width: 110 cm
Depth: 10 cm
Weight: 15 kg
Description and information about the work:
In ancient Greek mythology, Demeter was the goddess of fertility and agriculture, who protected all living beings on Earth and embodied good crops and well-being. Demeter’s influence manifests itself in prosperity and quality of nature’s gifts consumed by people. The modern world’s dynamic digitalization has a destructive flipside – digital overconsumption. Instagram, Facebook (Meta) Tik Tok, Youtube, Pinterest… All these companies share common business model – the monetization of human attention. Attention has become a commodity. The modern world is a game of mindfulness, where a human is in front of the screen, while behind the screen are corporation and AI algorithms that professionally control our attention. Attention mining is incredibly profitable. All that results in things like society polarization, fake news, digital addiction, election hacking etc. Demeter’s eyes symbolize the tool of information consumption. Yellow flock is flowing from her eyes. Flock is a special material that is used in the majority of our recent artworks – a yellow matte fabric that is visually associated with emoji’s basic color. Eyes’ basis, as well as the elements Demeter is crumbling into, are made of Black Mirror. That’s a reference to smartphones’ and other gadgets’ black screens. The balance of biological and technological spheres is the basis of mankind’s sustainable future.