Binary Associations

What happens when the author of a photos does not exist at all? When there is no clear intention? When reality as a point of reference is not verifiable? And when associations arise from a purely mechanical algorithm? With a fascinating charade of digital reality and analogue virtuality, Viktoria Binschtok challenges familiar ways of seeing and materialises the flood of images generated by the Internet or rather dematerializes reality. C/O Berlin has selected three of her series, which show and exemplify her artistic approach.

For her most recent series Cluster Viktoria Binschtok takes a random photo from her archive as a starting point and feeds it into the Internet image search. The algorithm searches through the countless images of the World Wide Web, selecting those that have a similar form, colour and structure to the uploaded original – a binary association. Viktoria Binschtok then uses the found material as a model for new, retagged photographs, which she then divides into groups of images. Through the act of re-photographing, she deletes all references to the origins of the pictures. Hence each of the clusters compactly exemplifies the intangible juxtaposition of the world of images around us. In this constellation, the source, the original and the singular image no longer play a role–concrete delimitations and classifications are rendered ineffective. An infinite loop.

Viktoria Binschtok, born in 1972 in Moscow, raised in Minden/Westfalen, studied Art Photography and Media Art at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig and was a master student in the class of Prof. Timm Rautert. Her works have been presented in exhibitions both in Germany and abroad, including Kunstverein Göttingen, Centre Pompidou Metz, Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau Dresden, Pier 24 San Francisco, Arts Santa Monica Barcelona, Frankfurter Kunstverein and Les Rencontres d‘Arles. Viktoria Binschtok lives and works in Berlin.

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