Polina Filippova

I am an artist and creative director from Moscow, working across video-related mediums, performance and painting.

My work is mainly introspective. I explore relationships between body and space in their various domains, from tactile to virtual. I am interested in the ways we connect to each other and ourselves and the role our physicality plays in it.

Upcoming exhibitions

02–03.07. 2021 | Beyond The Frame, The Horse Hospital, WC1N 1JD

23–25.07. 2021 | BEEP BEEP, Menier Gallery, SE1 1RU

My research on physical connections in the disembodied times that I was pursuing during my time at the RCA resulted in a project about the lack or absence of such connections, an experience that has recently become a part of everyone's world.

"Almost There" is a series of interactive self-portraits, where I try to visualize my image of self in a period of isolation. In this project, I reflect on the state of missing and its different emotional, bodily, and spatial aspects.

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— "Almost There" is a series of interactive self-portraits that I made being in a long-distance relationship during the lockdown [Fragments from Self-Portraits 02, 03, 06. Home view]

— In this state, reality starts to resemble a stream of compressed pixels in a video call, where each participant performs for the other in a little rectangular window [Self-Portrait 02. Home view]

— The medium and the genre refer to a classical portrait and a long tradition of female self-portrait, often painted in a home environment, where women both lived and worked, quite as we do now [Still from Self-Portrait 01]

— The final objects are digital paintings: matte screens with slow videos, installed in the wooden boxes, reminding of frames [Self-Portraits 01, 02, 03, 04. Gallery view]

— The long duration videos are quiet, almost nothing happens in them, but time passes [Self-Portrait 02. Home view]

— They are not too big to convey an intimate relationship with a viewer that one gets in a video call [Self-Portrait 01. Gallery view]

— The videos are as blurred as was my image of self. It is always difficult to see yourself, but quarantine has made it even harder [Gif from Self-Portrait 03]

— The pieces may fit in both home and public environments. The former is a place where they belong, and the latter is a place that allows connecting with someone outside of the character's room [Window pop-up exhibition]

— The portraits are interactive. They react to a viewer coming closer, acknowledging her presence by a subtle movement. It's a hint of connection that never really quite happens, as when we connect digitally [Self-Portrait 01. Example of interaction]

— Each portrait has its own set of reactions. Some react with a glance, while others change their posture. Responses also vary in intensity: from a slight movement of the hand to a turn of the body towards you [Self-portrait 06, example of reaction]

— The potential of action creates tension, although the action itself never fully happens, as it doesn't in the disembodied space of digital encounters. This loop of incompleteness is also reflected in the name "Almost There" [Gif from Self-Portrait 01. Example of reaction]

— The interaction is randomized, and it's an algorithm that controls the movement. At times there might be no reaction at all. Both the viewer and the character in the portrait are neither totally free nor entirely dependant on each other [Stills from Self-Portraits 02, 03, 04, 06. Examples of reaction]

"Almost There" is a series of video self-portraits, inspired by facetime and early webcam girls aesthetics. The project came out of my attempts to have an external gaze at myself in times when everyone only sees me on the screen. It's an accurate, almost documental representation of the space of missing, where time gets distorted, a room becomes an extension of one's body, and the reality feels as compressed as one's own image transmitted somewhere far away in a video call.

Medium:

single-channel video, framed screens

Size:

51×30×5 cm

In Collaboration with:

Anton Tolchanov

Interactive system

Antoine Hacheme

Interactive system

Polina Filippova

Medium:

Size:

In Collaboration with:

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About

Royal College of Art