mg src="https://dergreif-online.de/www/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Copy1-950x700.jpg" alt="Copy" width="950" height="700" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-53288" /> Today I want to show you one project from Oleg Yushko, an artist and a friend whose work does not stop to fascinate me. Born in Minsk, Belarus, Oleg graduated from the same Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics I did. In 2008, after graduation as a laureate at the Higher Institute of Fine Arts (HISK) in Gent, he moved to Düsseldorf where he still lives and works. Here is one of his latest creations, pulsating "DER GEIST GEISTLOSER ZUSTÄNDE", "THE SOUL OF SOULLESS CONDITIONS". [vimeo video_id="134275462" width="1000" height="563“] Oleg's website: www.olegyushko.com

mg src="https://dergreif-online.de/www/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/frames-390x700.jpg" alt="frames" width="390" height="700" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-53266" /> It happened with me when I still was a teenager living with my parents. We lived in the apartment on the 4th floor of the 14-floor apartment building. I always took the lift rather than use the stairs. It was a smelly brown cabin which went up pretty fast with a lot of noise and clatter. Several times the machine did not work properly. I pressed the button of the 4th floor but the lift would not stop and went straight up to the 14th. It felt like the cabin is going through a barrel of a cannon and the roof will not be able to stop it at the end. [vimeo video_id="134189861" width="1000" height="563“] ROOFLESS. 2011, by Anna Sokolova in cooperation with Oleg Yushko www.annasokolova.org

Today I want to present to you "YOUR FAVORITES", a joint project from the Revision Group, a collective of contemporary artists from Belarus, all specializing in their own different medias: Andrei Dureika, Janna Grak, Andrei Loginov, Maxim Tyminko, Maxim Wakultschik. In the past all the Revision Group members studied together in Germany, and released several group projects in Belarus in the 90s. "YOUR FAVORITES" is a series of digitally manipulated portraits featuring the members of the group posing as art legends, the artist whose influence shaped the development of the leading trends in contemporary art. The central theme of the project is the self-aware and humorous play about the social mechanisms underlying the production and historiography of art today. The photographs are exhibited as 176x250cm C-Prints on acrylic glass, aluminum. The artists' statement: "The general theme of our project is art-like science, and artists as scientists. We suppose that all art is a big scientific structure and each artist has own place inside. In contrast to the common perception of artists as “wild”, we define them as “hairy” and we take scholarliness as a basis, not wildness. Our formula is: Wildness + Scholarliness = Hairiness. The title of the project "Your Favorites" - is a reflection on art comic "Our Favorites" from Ad Reinhard. There were 175 candidates for portraits suggested by the group members. As a result of the interrogation we selected 21 artists by following criteria: 1. Authority 2. Inessentiality 3. Scholarliness 4. Hairiness 5. Wildness All works are divided to three groups based on a principle of three space models."

One year ago, on my short visit to friends in Düsseldorf, I had a chance to get acquainted with a very interesting person. Let me present to you Aljoscha, bio-futurist, creator of new living forms, artist and scientist. Here is what Aljoscha says about his work: "bioism or biofuturism represents my attempt to create new living forms and a new aesthetics of future organic life. bioism is a way to develop art objects which express visual possibilities of synthetical biology. bioism is an effort to produce art based on vitality, multiplicity and complexity. I regard each of my works as a living being. bioism extends life to lifeless subjects. personally, I believe that in the future, in the wake of a biological revolution, we will use living furniture, dwell in living houses, and travel in space using living stations. but the most exciting thing will be the ability of artists to work with living substances, thereby constructing new forms of life. the artistic act will acquire the practical sense of birth. fantastical might be reactions of art object to its creator and surroundings. art museums of the future could turn into zoological gardens, galleries into new life diversity funds, ateliers into biological laboratories. bioism aims to spread new and endless forms of life throughout the universe." Aljoscha's website: www.aljoscha.org

href="https://dergreif-online.de/www/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Test-Session-139.jpg"> COLLAPSING RADIOFORCE MANTRAS is a sound, video, live performance from my good friend, Piotr Tolmachov. Piotr has particular interest in restoration and modification of old soviet analogue synthesizers. He uses them to create moving, kinetic sound surfaces full of electricity. COLLAPSING RADIOFORCE MANTRAS is a project based on unique tape recordings of voice communications between flight operation officers and pilots of US & EU strategic reconnaissance aircrafts. The tapes were made by USSR Air Defence Forces in 1980s. [vimeo video_id="134133150" width="1000" height="563“] Here is what Piotr says about the project: "I use different layers that represent different realms: Voice> It is really difficult to categorise the way these people communicate: it is not a regular talk, it is not singing, it is not poetry reading, nor it is rapping. They belonged to “voice subculture” that was never exposed to the public, hence abandoned, forgotten, unknown. They repeat their call signs, encoded coordinates, messages over and over again on a daily basis through years which become so polished so fluid so musical so rhythmically accentuated and so hypnotic that you can call it their daily mantras. I selected 11 fragments from the tape (with the duration up to 10 seconds) that were used as mantras (consequently repeated fragment of voice communication with a slight decrease of duration with every next loop until it finally ceases in time). Each point of mantra’s collapse is ended by the same mantra with the original duration. All mantras are divided by continuous interlude radio speeches. Sound> Besides voice communications, this tape contains all kind of sound traces left from radio frequencies, distortions, additional subharmonics caused by transmitting, receiving and recording equipment. Unfortunately, weak tape machines and worn tape couldn’t reproduce all nuances of that powerful sound. To reconstruct this layer of raw sound electricity, I decided to use sound of soviet-era analogue synthesizers, organs and drum modules produced in 1980s. It is well known that major part of soviet synthesizers were designed and produced at military plants and were made from the same electrical circuits, used the same ideas as their older brothers (all kinds of radio transmitters, receivers etc.). Therefore they share the same sound signatures. Video> The whole visual sequence is a history of Soviet era cosmic and sci-fi movies from 20s to 80s of XXth century compressed into 30 minutes." Piotr's website: www.piotr-tolmachov.com

I think I was about 5-6 years old when I first saw how my father makes family photo prints in our tiny bathroom/darkroom. The whole ritual of setting up the enlarger, mixing the chemicals, blocking the light with a dark blanket... He did not have a timer, so there was a numerological mantra "21-22-23-...", for every exposure. He never made contact prints, the selection was made on the spot, just briefly looking at the negative. 3 years ago I took all his film archive and scanned it. Here is the selection of shots which have never seen a "positive" view before, even from their creator.