Beauty

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

Exhibitions

2023	File Electronic Language International Festival, Sao Paulo, Brasil
2023	Beijing International Short Film Festival, Beijing, China
2021	'ESSENCE / ABSENCE' The Wrong Biennale (online)
2021	'Videowords', Torrance Art Museum, California, USA
2021	Computer Vision Art Gallery exhibition, CVPR, Vancouver, Canada
2020	'Cinema Letters' , French Cinematheque (online)
2020	Art Fair Madrid, Madrid, Spain
2020	'SSA | VAS OPEN', Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh, UK
2019	'The Virtual is (Always) Already Real', Bronx Art Space, New York, USA
2019	'Radical Immersions' , Watermans Centre, London, UK
2019	WRO Media Art Biennale, Poland
2019	‘Target: Over & Out’, Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem, Israel
2019	Videoex Film Festival, Zurich, Switzerland
2018	Festival Tous Courts, Institut de l’Image, Aix-en-Provence, France