DOG {2020}

DOG {2021}

DOG at Interstate Projects, New York. March 5th - April 11th, 2021

Interstate Projects is pleased to present DOG by Viktor Timofeev, an installation of colored pencil drawings, a mural, and a self-playing game; all arranged within a fictionalized bureaucratic setting.

Within the drawings, figures writhe above architectural plans, their bodies stacking together to form shapes loosely evoking recognizable infrastructures. The three channel self-playing game, Chat, presents an automated questionnaire being executed by two digital avatars: an asker and an answerer. Beginning with the Roman alphabet, the glyphs on two tabletop monitors are systematically scrambled, quickly mutating beyond recognition. Hanging overhead, a third screen displays the same alphabet arranged around a clock face, its hands illustrating the process of encryption in real time. Stuck in a loop, the dialogue is effectively robbed of its potential for true interactivity: one of the accompanying keyboards is broken, and the other has a single key jammed. The game is left to play itself, endlessly feeding identical responses to increasingly illegible questions. DOG appears to have been abandoned by its users, whose abrupt departure is frozen in time.

Chat, 2021, 3-channel custom software, furniture, modified keyboards

The Living Room, 2021, colored pencil on paper.

The Baltic Huddle, 2021, colored pencil on paper.

The Human Bridge, 2021, colored pencil on paper.

The Accumulation Plan, 2021, colored pencil on paper.

The Nurtured Floor, 2021, colored pencil on paper.

Exit Stage Right, 2021, mural on wall, pastel.

Chart for Chat, demonstrating the mechanic at work in the scrambled alphabet.

Demo of all rotation permutations for just the letter A, keeping horizontal symmetry to allow for letter-like forms to be made.

Demo of rotations of 4 letters in a “turn-taking” manner, and involving a randomized swapping of tops and bottoms to ensure some of chaos, and eventual introduction of the black square, “blocked” letters. Below is a sample text written and updated in the animated alphabet. This is the mechanic that is used in the three-channel installation in the exhibition.

Other iterations of this work:

as part of Post-Digital Intimacy at National Gallery Prague, curated by Michal Novotny.
Featuring work by Darja Bajagić, Ivana Bašić, Louisa Gagliardi, Lola Gonzàlez, Daiga Grantina, Rachel Maclean, Pakui Hardware, Viktor Timofeev and Tenant of Culture

as part of 14th Baltic Triennial at CAC, Vilnius, curated by Valentinas Klimašauskas and João Laia.
Featuring work by Jüri Arrak, Tekla Aslanishvili, Alex Baczynski-Jenkins, Zuzanna Czebatul, Juta Čeičytė, Anna Daučíková, Aleksandra Domanović, Harun Farocki, Andrei Ujica, Uli Golub, Edvinas Grin, Lubomir Grzelak, Henrikas Gulbinas, Flaka Haliti, Roman Himey-Yarema Malashchuk, Klára Hosnedlová, Monika Janulevičiūtė, Antanas Lučiūnas, Milda Januševičiūtė, Miša Skalskis, Agnė Jokšė, Krõõt Juurak, Alex Bailey, Dóra Maurer, Flo Kasearu, Zsófia Keresztes, Jiri Kovanda, Vojtěch Kovařík, Tomasz Kowalski, Edward Krasiński, Žygimantas Kudirka, Felicita, Dasha Kuznetsova, Danutė Kvietkevičiūtė, Sasha Litvintseva, Natalia LL, George Mačiūnas, Yarema Malashchuk, Roman Himey, Rachel McIntosh, Robertas Narkus, Ania Nowak, Markéta Othová, Jaakko Pallasvuo, Agnieszka Polska, Nada Prlja, Anni Puolakka, Karol Radziszewski, Marija Teresė Rožanskaitė, Adam Rzepecki, Kirill Savchenkov, Sergey Shabohin, Jura Shust, Janek Simon, Miša Skalskis, Emilija Škarnulytė, Martina Smutná, Virgilijus Šonta, Anastasija Sosunova, Mladen Stilinović, Lukas Strolia, Oleg Šurajev, Viktor Timofeev, Dominika Trapp, Goran Trbuljak, Evita Vasiljeva, Mona Vatamanu, Florin Tudor, Elena Veleckaitė, Austėja Vilkaitytė, Stephen Webb, Jonas Zagorskas, Žilvinas Dobilas, Artur Žmijewski.