Lightness

About Guli Silberstein

London-based artist Guli Silberstein, who studied and trained academically in New York, has focused intensively on the medium of digital moving images since 2001. Combined with the digital-neural networks of artificial intelligence, the nearly inexhaustible possibilities of video processing and post-production enable new forms of visual expression and a congenial approach to mental images and

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

London-based artist Guli Silberstein, who studied and trained academically in New York, has focused intensively on the medium of digital moving images since 2001. Combined with the digital-neural networks of artificial intelligence, the nearly inexhaustible possibilities of video processing and post-production enable new forms of visual expression and a congenial approach to mental images and dreamlike sequences. His images always reflect the present day and questions of modern life. He truly gives his imagination free rein while directing it towards an intellectual reflection of sensual contemplation.

In Lightness, for instance, young ballerinas floating in a graceful dance are circled by a magically changing landscape of flowers and classical architecture. Though the human dance is at the centre of the image, its turning motion is linked to the surroundings. The background thus literally circles around the dancer’s graceful movements like on a revolving stage. Diverse forms appear in the middle of the image and disappear again until the gyroscopic motion reaches its tipping point and the movement changes direction. And so, with dynamic lightness and elegance, the round dance swings back and forth through this enchanting natural and cultural landscape to produce a sense of suspended lightness.

In Beauty, meanwhile, the a diverse range of bright flowers and blossoms appears in vibrating, sharply drawn textures from the faces of young women. Their hair pulled back and their lips made up in a sensual red, the shapely models present a changing face of perfect beauty. No sooner has our gaze discovered a face, it changes and is transformed into a new one, blossoming colourfully in floral form. Here, too, the image swings back and forth through a full cycle of motion and turns several times on its axis, like a spinning top. Graceful gestures of the hands float across the image like rockets rising in the sky. In this way, the circling metamorphosis of human beauty becomes a machine-like contemplation on the essence of beauty in and of itself.      

Stephan Reisner