Kristina Borinskaya: Block Universe

Kristina Borinskaya: Block Universe by Daniel GeorgeJanuary 22, 2022

©Kristina Borinskaya

Projects featured this week were selected from our most recent call-for-submissions. I was able to interview each of these artists to gain further insight into the bodies of work they shared. Today, we are looking at the series Block Universe by Kristina Borinskaya.

Kristina Borinskaya is a visual artist based in Palermo, Italy. In her artistic endeavours she combines a broad range of media such as photography, installation and drawing. With a strong interest in intersection between reality and fiction, her practice draws inspiration from philosophical reflections, delving into the theme of human perception of reality in relation to space and time. Her work has been published in various international publications and has been exhibited in Italy and Germany. Some of her works from the “Block Universe” series are currently on display at Mas.edu museum of Contemporary art (Sassari), as part of PNA XV.

©Kristina Borinskaya

Block Universe

The “Block Universe” theory is based on the idea of thinking of the entire history of the universe as a single block. According to this view, the past, present and future are all equally real and present. And thus, the passage from one moment of time to the next one is only an illusory perception necessary for human gnoseology.

Starting from this concept I have developed a series of parallel reflections. I try to analyse our perception of time, on the one hand, and the perception of reality through the photographic medium, on the other.

Photography is a quite paradoxical medium, that can depict “objective reality” as well as to manipulate the reality of the image. In this regard, I create installations with objects and materials of everyday life, I juxtapose them by reworking spaces, distances and reciprocal positions.

The photographed objects are fragmented and recomposed in totemic structures halfway between the real and the surreal. These structures become symbolic of a reality in which time crystallizes in a succession of immobile states. In this way, by canceling the perception of an evolution between past, present and future, time itself becomes a palindromic structure, potentially viable in both directions.

©Kristina Borinskaya

Daniel George: What brought about this project, and your interest in drawing on philosophical reflections through photography, in general?

Kristina Borinskaya: When I was a child, I went through a traumatic experience that somehow altered my perception of time and space. In that critical situation I had the strange feeling that time decelerates considerably. This episode caused a short circuit, which then turned into the obsession with the notion of time on the one hand and the fascination for our mental constructs on the other.

I came across “Block Universe” theory, for the first time, while I was reading “The Order of Time” by Carlo Rovelli and I found curious the fact that despite Eternalism states that all moments of time are as real as all places in space this does not accord with our subjective feeling that time flows.

In this regard, I think, there is no better medium than photography which can explore this layered interpretation of the concept of time because of its constant negotiation between fact and fiction, between truth and illusion. These are aspects I wanted to investigate and dig into interconnecting apparently distant areas such as: visual arts, philosophy and physics.

©Kristina Borinskaya

DG: Could you tell us more about your use of installation, drawing, and performance to augment your photographs? What does this multi-disciplinary approach describe about your creative vision?

KB: Actually, my interdisciplinary approach is marked by a constant necessity for experimentation and a freer field of work without any kind of limitations. My method is mainly based on the process of extrapolating existing objects and materials from their usual environment and then translating them into symbolic sculptural forms, for example the representation of the sphere is a recuring motif in this series which symbolizes the aspiration to perfection and order.

By creating the installations photographing and then dismantling them my intention is to create a sort of a short circuit in the mind of the viewer. These photographs of objects, primary forms and fragments of the human figure merge, generating a totally new world where the distinction between object and subject, image of an object and the idea of image as an object itself collapses.

©Kristina Borinskaya

DG: I was drawn to the unusual, almost suspended perception of physical law in some of your photographs. With your interest in the block universe theory in mind, how would you say that your images analyze our limits of understanding regarding time and reality?

KB: In fact, what I try to do in this project is to investigate human limits and challenge our convictions. In that respect, Block Universe theory is a fertile ground as a departure point for my work. When I asked myself how to translate this theory in images, I imagined a world in which time ceases to exist as a gnoseological compromise, a world in which the connection between cause and effect is practicable without limitations in both directions.

This suspension of time and causality gives to images a strong ambiguity so while looking at these images it is impossible to say wherever objects inside them are falling or are rising. Moreover, the photographs are not tied together by a linear thread and it’s easy to assume as though their events are all taking place simultaneously in a perpetual present.

©Kristina Borinskaya

DG: I’m curious about your description of these images as “parallel reflections.” Would you elaborate on your interpretation?

KB: I used this expression for of its semantic ambiguity, particularly for the multiple meanings that the word “reflection” can assume, that’s why I think this collocation fits very well with the general atmosphere of the project.

In Latin the word “reflectere” means “to fold” and I like to think of reality as something that folds up according to who or what interacts with it. Just like the principle of complementarity in quantum mechanics, which states that objects have certain pairs of complimentary proprieties that cannot all be measured or observed at once. This leaves room to a sort of sense of distrust in what we have in front of our eyes and this aspect inevitably pushes us to reconsider our notion of reality.

©Kristina Borinskaya

DG: Why do you feel it is important that your photographs maintain a “plurality of meanings” for the viewer, rather than a have more specific reading?

KB: Although the work is very constructed and articulated what I want to express is a sense of something irresolute and mysterious. It’s not about a specific message, it’s about asking questions rather than offering the answers. For this reason, I don’t give names to the images, somehow, I rely on the viewers perception.