Throughout her current solo exhibition, "Flying Awareness," at Lazarides Rathbone in London, conceptual artist Katrin Fridriks visualizes the affects of modern day monitoring and tracking technology on human identity. Fridriks questions the reasoning behind the use of drones and surveillance cameras and the ways they are distorting and classifying reality. She uses "Flying Awareness" to raise a-WAR-eness about the use of such technology.
FLY ZONE, an installation that consists of nine round canvases and symmetrical plexi lines, indicates the location of the observer. Seen as a whole, it represents navigation or targeting monitors with lines demarking longitude and round canvases measuring altitude. From close up, a micro view, the abstract images look like the distorted, colorful patterns of a landscape over which the observer is flying.
FLY ZONE
Another series that plays with perspective is made up of Fridriks' "Awareness" paintings, a 320 x 210 cm installation consisting of six 100 x 100 cm canvases. These works symbolize abstract creatures resembling birds or aliens taking off in flight.
"Awareness" series
The flying sensation and weightless present in Fridriks' conceptual work is further emphasized by the reflective silver paper on the floor of the gallery. By removing the firm ground under visitors' feet, Fridriks makes them participate in her show. Reflective paper is a recurring element in Fridriks' work, pulling the observer inside her pieces.
Installation view
From the reflective paper in the window of the gallery to projected footage of the show captured by an actual drone before the opening, "Flying Awareness" is centered around surveillance and the distortion of reality. As visitors' images are deformed and blurred in the silver floor, they become the central point of the elaborate exhibition.
"Flying Awareness" runs until July 24, 2014 at Lazarides Rathbone in London.
