Description: Media Quarantine 2020. Soap Re-Sound. Practical Guide
Part of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts project “Media Quarantine”
Soap is one of the quarantine heroes. It acts as an image. In this video research, as in many others, I swap image with sound, that turns out to be more powerful than image. Wind is a very fitting metaphor for the human mind: it is invisible, yet its actions are obvious. Their combination — a new substance — a filter, protection, soap, mask shielding from information flow. This is a very focused choice of one’s own sound preferences, interests, emotions. This choice is unlimited even in isolation. It is inside us, so we can re-sound everything, any reality. We ourselves sound and vibrate through our bodies on a certain frequency. Research has proven, that high positive frequencies enhance body defense, and perhaps get rid of some problems, and perhaps add some high frequencies to our collective background noise.
Soap sounds like wind.
Natalia Lyakh Multimedia artist born in St. Petersburg (Russia). From her early childhood Natalia was passionate about painting, sculpture and photography. Later on, she developed a strong interest in science and got her Ph.D. in Neurolinguistics on the subject of Brain Asymmetry and Speech Processing. Several years of a scientific career were not, however, a hindrance to her artistic development as she continued to experiment with photography and got involved in video art. Since 2000 Nataliya devotes her full-time attention to photography, vidéo-art, short films & videoinstallations, working in Paris, Stockholm, Istanbul, Milano, Rome, New York, London. She took part in many artshows and festivals. Her works can be found in private and public collections, including Russian Museum. Influenced by her former scientific research, she invites us to discover the magic dimensions, abstractions, hidden in the simple objects, as seen through the lens of a microscope, the prism of binoculars, a périscope or a kaléidoscope. Her creations, with a use plexiglass, aluminium, video or videoinstallation are invitations to discover our daily life objects or situations with aesthetic, innovative and perplexing treatment.
She currently lives and works in Paris.