"For Russian thinkers,
the meaning of the screen expands far beyond its function as a surface
displaying an image originating from elsewhere: it is also a bridge
across
two spaces, one physical, one imaginary; a link between a human subject
and an audio-visual stream; and a rectangular window which opens onto
alternative (virtual) reality. So understood, the 'screen' is that
which
unites old and new media, still and moving image, analog and digital
culture.
"The emphasis on the screen as a space that opens onto an
alternative reality is echoed in much modern Russian art which remains
firmly committed to the tradition of easel painting. In contrast to the
West, where artists gave up on illusionistic pictorial space in favor of
the notion of a painting as a self-sufficient material object, many
Russian
artists, both representational and abstract, continue to conceive of a
painting ('kartina') as a parallel reality which begins at the picture
frame and extends towards infinity. Thus, Eric Bulatov has described his
paintings as windows onto another, spiritual universe, while Ilya
Kabakov
conceptualizes his installations as a logical expansion of pictorial
traditions into the third dimension -- a materialization of reality
models
previously presented by painting.
"Young Russian media artists are using the computer as an excuse to
re-think basic categories and mechanisms of screen culture, such as
frame,
montage, and illusionistic space. Thus, rather than representing a
radical
break with the past, the computer screen becomes, for them, a
re-articulation of the models which have defined screen consciousness
for
centuries."