Flight Mechanics
Tatiana Istomina

GALLERY III

Tatiana Istomina, *Flight Mechanics,* 2022, multimedia installation, detail.

April 23 - May 22, 2022

Opening reception: Saturday, April 23 from 6-8pm

The central questions at play in the work of 2021-22 A.I.R. Fellow Tatiana Istomina concern the conditions of knowledge and the variable concepts of truth. Her newest body of work Flight Mechanics, on view at A.I.R. Gallery, explores the long-established binary between a mechanism and a living organism. Who or what counts as alive and conscious of their existence? Where do we draw the line between human and non-human consciousness? Is it possible to draw such a line at all?

Istomina’s pictorial sources are varied, ranging from nineteenth-century machinery designs to early and recent experiments in physiology and genetics and Soviet era photography. In the exhibition, printed and embroidered images are combined within sculptural frames made of wood, string, and fabric. The frames criss-cross the gallery, turning it into a spatial and pictorial maze, wherein photographs of dogs undergoing Pavlovian conditioning and Soviet athletes engaged in group exercise collide with the schematics of the first analogue computer.

Istomina’s installation maps out the gray zone where mechanical and organic structures become interchangeable. Ongoing advances in science, technology, social conditioning, and propaganda blur the boundaries between human consciousness and programmable reflexes, living tissue and hardware. As Istomina’s project suggests, mechanism/organism integration is both dangerous and exhilarating: it may well transform sentient beings into senseless automatons or instead, free them from their biological limitations, giving wingless creatures the ability to fly.

Tatiana Istomina is a Russia-born artist and writer based in New York. Her practice includes painting, sculpture, installation, film, and text. Her projects have been featured in exhibitions and screenings across the US and abroad at venues including Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum, the Drawing Center, the Bronx Museum, Gaîté Lyrique, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Istomina is a recipient of several awards including the AAF Prize for Fine Arts, Joan Mitchell Foundation grant, the Chenven Foundation grant, the Puffin Foundation grant and the Spillways Fellowship, and worked at multiple residencies, such as Yaddo, the Core program, the Drawing Center’s Open Sessions and Jan van Eyck Academie (Netherlands). Istomina holds a PhD in physics from Yale University and an MFA from Parsons New School.

View the Press Release here.

View Tatiana Istomina’s page here.

Public Program:

Image as an Apparatus: Pictorial Knowledge in Science, Art, and Personal Experience

Friday, May 20 at 6:30 PM

Triangle Arts Association

For more information, click here.

To register, click here.