Polina Filippova
Location: London
Biography
Polina Filippova is an interdisciplinary artist, working across interactive art, performances, and video installations. She holds a Master’s degree from the Royal College of Art (2021, Moving Image), and is currently based in London.
Polina uses tools and languages of digital technology to talk about love, loneliness, sense of space, and her body. Her work has been exhibited at the Cynthia Corbette’s Gallery (London), Menier Gallery (London), The Function Suite (London). She received an award ‘Focus On the Female’ as an emerging artist (2021).
Submitted work
Title: Almost There
About the work
‘Almost There’ is a series of 5 interactive self-portraits that capture the emotional landscape of solitary living between digital and physical space. Time gets distorted, and a room becomes an extension of the body. Reality feels compressed as a face transmitted somewhere far away on a video call.
Each of the portraits in the series is a digital painting: slow videos on matte screens, installed in the wooden frames, hiding microcomputers and sensors. The visual aesthetics is inspired by old Dutch and Danish painting tradition, and by the video call’s low-quality image. The portraits react to a viewer coming closer, acknowledging her presence by a subtle movement. The connection never quite happens, as when we connect digitally.
In my work I attempt to uncover new emotions and interactions, appearing in the digital world, but have never been represented before. I search for a form that imagines a world where relationships with the digital could be intimate and deep.
“Interactive art is often perceived as something cold and purely technological. In my work, I aim to create intimate and poetic experiences using technology in a subtle way and engaging the viewers in meaningful interaction.
Being included in the Top 10 is a major encouragement for me and I am incredibly grateful for the platform that the UK New Artist of the Year Award provides to the artists at the beginning of our careers.”
