The Moscow-based collective BlueSoup uses computer graphics to create videos that show meticulously crafted, illusionistic but desolate landscapes and seascapes, often with some subtle departures from the realistic. There is no narrative development; in fact, some of the videos betray only the slightest movement after prolonged viewing.
The untitled work from 2009 which was recently on view at the Stella Art Foundation shows an ocean with gently rolling waves under a blue sky. There is no sound in this 38-minute piece, and the colors are few: navy, azure and green, dappled with reflected sunlight on the waves’ edges. The scene is free of incident: no marine animals appear, no froth forms on the surface, one sees no ships or other human traces. In the midst of this otherwise hyperrealistic expanse, a furrow stretches from the right middle ground toward the left background, as though some offscreen Moses had parted the waters, only this time using computer code. The crevice seems, mysteriously, to leave one part of the ocean higher than the other.
The work was projected on one entire wall of a room painted black. As in a classical seascape painting, the low point of view fosters the illusion of an unbound expanse of water that can seem overwhelming. One could almost suspend disbelief and ignore the fact that everything we see has been constructed via a motion graphics program, so profound is the awe one feels at the sublimity of nature.
BlueSoup was founded in Moscow in 1996 by Alex Dobrov, Daniel Lebedev and Valery Patkonen; they were joined by Alexander Lobanov in 2002. In a press release, they suggest that the new work offers a metaphor for impassable borders, but for the viewer, the boundary between reality and fantasy proves highly permeable before this powerful illusion.
Photo: BlueSoup: Untitled, 2009, video, 38 minutes; at the Stella Art Foundation.
Photo: BlueSoup: Untitled, 2009, video, 38 minutes; at the Stella Art Foundation.