ART BOOK

AROTIN & SERGHEI Infinite Screen
From Light Cells to Monumental Installations at Centre Pompidou

Introduction by Gerfried Stocker,
text contributions / testemonies by Ivan Fedele, Sabine Haag, Ulf Küster, Marie-Eve Lafontaine, Marie-Claudine Llamas, Serge Lasvignes, Martina Mazzotta, Frank Madlener, Caroline Messensee, Monika Robescu, Günter Schönberger, Karine Tissot, Bertrand du Vignaud

304 pp., 350 images, Hardcover, 24.00 x 30.00 cm, English
48 euro

ISBN 978-3-7757-4545-1
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AROTIN & SERGHEI’s Infinite Screen reflects contemporary visuality. Like luminous and transcendent symphonies of light, their intermedial works of art describe both the macrocosm and the microcosm of our world, using screens as symbols and portals to infinity. This book retraces the artist’s supraliminal work-in-progress, from the intermedial paintings of red, green, and blue Light Cells—the DNA of today’s visual language—to the monumental installations at Ars Electronica, the Venice Biennale, the Fondation Beyeler, the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, and at Centre Pompidou, Paris.

Bookproject realized with the support of Espace Muraille, the Kira A. Princess of Prussia Foundation, Eva Kahan Foundation

extract of the book:

Introduction
From Light Cells to Monumental Installations at Centre Pompidou

Infinite Screen connects the viewer with the idea of the infinite beyond the visible surface of “everything we see.” It is an ongoing work-in-progress, a transcendental and supraliminal work of art in constant metamorphosis, a trajectory toward the genesis of light and enlightenment, a work cycle that comprises various single works of art and installations created in wide ranges of formats and techniques, and presented in changing philosophical and architectural contexts. 

At the opening of Infinite Screen at Centre Pompidou in Paris, the president of the Centre Pompidou, Serge Lasvignes, highlighted in his introduction speech some of the most significant conceptual characteristics of the Infinite Screen project: its interdisciplinary approach and realization, the connections with global art history and with the museum’s collections and visions, its spirit, symbolism, and radiance in a public space. 

In the midst of the profound changes in habits and techniques that mark our time, the idea is to create an open and infinite artwork that researches and shows new perspectives and an extension of space and time. Every civilization has its specific languages of signs and images. In the context​ of today’s restless frequency of arising and disappearing information, and the inundation of digital imagery, Infinite Screen is intended as a counterpoint to the ubiquitous monitors and screen-based devices. 

The vision of the art project and its wide spectrum of manifestations is to remove the limitations and the ready-made patterns of thinking, to extend the limits of imagination, to reflect the phenomena and the visual vocabulary of our time, and finally to give to the work of art an essential function in our society that makes possible immersion, resonance, and reflection. 

Through the hypnotic observation of the fluctuating Light Cells, the smallest particles of digital imagery, Infinite Screen questions and explores the codes, the aspects, and the meaning of the prevailing language of our time. 

The project leads us through the macrocosm and microcosm, the mythology and the mystery of the infinite, through transfiguration and metamorphosis, toward the pulses of information, the origins and the genesis of light. Infinite Screen connects us with the idea of the infinite in many different forms: the “infinite universe and worlds” as Giordano Bruno had described it, the infinite space of thoughts, and the innumerable realities or Truth Possibilities in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s sense, it enables the transcendence of the limits of our perception by recalling the symbol of The Tower of Babel with its countless steps and cycles of construction and deconstruction. 

The development of Infinite Screen combines the sectors of visual arts, contemporary architecture, sculpture, new media, technology, and music. These multidisciplinary interconnections show each sign, each idea, each single work of art in a continuous process of expansion and transformation and in different states of materiality. Each artwork develops new and specific points of references, connects with collective memory, with emblematic places, and creates a specific context and dialogue.

The focus of this publication is set on the presentation of the artistic creations from 2012–22. Introduced by Gerfried Stocker, director of Ars Electronica, with texts by art experts and the directors of the particpating museums and art institutions, this book reveals an overview of the Infinite Screenproject, from theLight Cells and intermedial paintings cycles, to the monumental installations at Ars Electronica; the Venice Biennale; the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna; Fondation Beyeler, Basel; in Giverny; and at the Centre Pompidou, Paris. 

Alexander von Arotin & Serghei Victor Dubin
AROTIN & SERGHEI / Artists and founders of the Infinite Screen project