The “Paranature” Institute exhibition is the result of cooperation between three institutions: Art & Science Center of ITMO University, Masters Digital and Marina Gisich Projects. “Paranature” Institute presented projects created by students and graduates of the Art & Science Master's program at ITMO University. The exhibition demonstrated the variety of art & science practices from bio-art to nft.
The “Paranature” Institute is focused on the search for a new image of nature that erases the opposition between natural and cultural (technological). The authors created a new myth of paranature that replaced longlasted belief in the universality of scientific knowledge with phantasmagoric visions of plants, speculative research and the experiencing of "unknowable". The core activity of the “Paranature” Institute, which worked at Marina Gisich Projects for a month and a half, was the studies focused on interspecies communication, life after death, media archeological inquiries, and redefining the possibilities of a dialogue between arts and sciences.
In the project specially created for the exhibition, Laura Rodriguez invited the audience to look into the ghostly dreams of plants. In the new project of the art group BIOROBOTY 019, the study of the local and the global took place in Petri dishes based on experiments with bioprinting. In the project "I — Other" by Sofia Osbanova, the viewers were invited to feel onto the existence of animals by applying tears of reptiles, birds and mammals reproduced in the laboratory. The project by Alexander Pogrebnyak and Anton Shchegolev immersed the audience in the world of information chaos: the combination of analog and digital devices allowed the authors of the project to snatch visual images from the formless audio stream. While the project of Pavlina Belokrinitskaya explored alternative scenarios for the future, which are based on the practice of care.
The exhibition consisted of sections corresponding to the scientific methods of working with materials: in vitro, in situ, ex vivo. In January, together with Masters Digital, the project got a virtual incarnation — “in silico”. An online exhibition with the participation of digital projects has opened in the 3D gallery of the new multifunctional digital art platform Masters Digital. The projects explored the boundaries of physical and virtual worlds, created artistic images with the help of artificial intelligence, and also turned to the analysis of post-digital nature.

In Silico
The transition to the digital level of representation entails the rejection of material attachment to the objects of research and the strict framework of the scientific view - physical and conceptual limitations. In the digital space reproducing the logic of the "white cube" with its inherent unambiguity and excluding the intrusion of other meanings, projects addressed to mystical and parascientific knowledge are presented. The intuitive and sensory act as an alternative to the "pure" scientific view, an attempt to escape from reality.
The change in physical and discursive conditions leads to the emergence of new actors participating in the study of the world, such as artificial intelligence (projects Neurotaro, Neurotrialogue and angelusnovuschekingvibes. mp4.), the construction of new objects (Ah Sasha, Water Sculptures) and the rethinking of existing ones (Imminent Call).
In silico transports the viewer into a space of “outerness”, where magic as absolute mythology “suspenses” reality and re-enchants this world.


https://www.spatial.io/s/In-silico-61b3652ac9c45500016cf823

Artists of the offline exibition:

Alexander Pogrebnyak, Anton Shchegolev, Laura Rodriguez, Pavlina Belokrinitskaya, Sofia Osbanova, BIOROBOTY 19



Artists of the online exhibition:

Grigory Kirgizov, Julia Greza, Maria Fox Larsson, Ivan Kostyurin, Anita Kutlinskaya, Ah Sasha, Ernest S

Co-curated by Asya Kaplan



Curators of the online exhibition:

Anastasia Koltunova, Khristina Ots, Asya Kaplan