Fiolent Crystal Baby
The goal of Stepan Ryabchenko’s art practice is to develop a sustainable digital world with its own laws, forms of life, and mythology. Each new work represents a new topos or character in this virtual universe. Ryabchenko’s series Virtual Garden is comprised of anthropomorphic characters inhabiting minimalist virtual landscapes. They are not just objects but full-blown characters with their own personalities and author’s descriptions. The garden’s existence is not limited by climatic factors or any physical parameters. Its views, biodiversity, area and lifespan are limited by nothing but the potential of our minds.
In Fiolent Crystal Baby, the new resident joining the virtual habitat soars above the water surface in a light mist, emanating peace and tranquility. Elegant, semi-translucent and gentle, it resembles a zoomorphic inhabitant of oceanic depths rather than a plant. Therefore, Ryabchenko is playing demiurge, facing no external canons or limitations in his own world. This fantastical flower, “brought to life” with animation, slowly moves its tentacle leaves to atmospheric ambient soundtrack, developed by the artist’s brother Sergey Ryabchenko specifically for the purpose.
Creating his digital “nature,” Stepan Ryabchenko espouses the idea of harmony between humankind and its environment, with each side being seen as a subject endowed with equal rights and consciousness. Instead of making nature a mere reflection of human feelings and associations, the artist confers it with feelings of its own, re-mythologizing it and making humankind just one element of the myth. The issue of the humankind’s interactions with nature is particularly pressing now, when the threat of ecological disaster looms permanently over the world because of the humankind’s consumerist approach to the environment. By using one product of the humankind’s technological development as his instrument, Ryabchenko considers how this relationship could be reframed.
Natalia Matsenko, art critic
