Katarina Neskovic
beyond gestell, 2024
beyond gestell brings together technologies of different periods to provoke reflection of our increasingly entangled identities. Unassuming at first, the work consists of objects that remind us of the familiar blue and white ware we might see hanging at our grandmother’s. Upon closer inspection, plastic objects that pervade our contemporary lives are revealed: a coffee lid, yogurt bottom, the delicate folds of a takeout container. Their surfaces are covered by whimsical imagery that depicts an idyllic symbiosis between human and non-human.
Made using plastic containers as molds, and a generative model trained on a custom data set of blue and white ware spanning cultures and epochs, beyond gestell provokes reflection on the homogenizing effects of technology. What differs today from the trade and colonial conquest that spread porcelain designs from east to west – is velocity. Digital networks do not rely on ships but on instantaneous pulses of light, whose very nature is inherently biased due to being built on the English language. And, the velocity keeps increasing - for generative models have the power to distort, misinform, and threaten our sense of security.
Amidst the polarizing panic and our desire for a narrative arc with a hero, a conflict, a resolution, beyond gestell provokes us to lean into the complex web, to take a closer look. For if we do, we might just notice the strange artifacts before their pervasiveness makes them unassuming to our naked eye – like the tiny fragments of plastic floating above the stream, of bits and bytes beneath.
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Katarina Neskovic is an interdisciplinary artist. Her background in engineering has established a framework through which she sees the world: one of perpetual flux and adaptation (human and non-human). It is often easier to understand change in things than ourselves; the implications on our lived experience has become a focal point of inquiry.
Formally her work gravitates to repetition, networks and multiples. Her early work in photography was captivated by the endless possibility of subtle variations (as in nature). This continued fascination - and its consequence to authorship and aura – has extended to three dimensional space. Here she intuitively seeks processes, materials and forms that express a reality grounded in becoming.
