Kristina Pulejkova: Carbon Memories

There are times when the artist’s own interpretations of their works display a ”distorted image“ of the truth. Through a variety of installations, through film and sound, Pulejkova poses the question: If the atom of carbon contains the memories of all its past organic forms, do we too, as human beings composed of 18% carbon, similarly contain carbon memories at an atomic level? Hence the Carbon Memories, or the journey of a carbon atom through the biosphere, so to speak. Pulejkova is a multimedia artist who, guided by the Vienna and London schools, investigates the possible connections between man and machine, the organic and the mechanic. Her works relate to science, astronomy, physics, geography, and the complexity of ecosystems. By way of the given symbols, transposed by a creative language, she also opens opportunities for the wider audience to obtain individual insights and make interventions, arriving at a visual perception of the exhibit. This visualization encompasses everything that occurs around us, in order to provide a sound perspective through which the artistic elements are created. She draws inspiration from Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table (1975) and Brian Eno’s musical diagram (Discreet Music, 1975). The former explains the journey of the atom, beginning in the rock and ending in the human brain, while the latter’s continuous looping of the music Pulejkova employs as a metaphor for the carbon cycle. In this independent exhibition, which Kristina has won as part of the XI Biennial of Young Artists award, she furthers these themes and investigates the chemical and philosophical aspects of carbon, contingent on and carried out by the meteorites, moss, Spirulina pigment, chloroplast or chlorophyll, sound sensors, videos, rotating cylinders with detailed inscriptions, and the records that create sounds or composition of the carbon cycle. This may well be the trait and quality of the final dimension of her image, which she reflects in her eternal organic exploration and the ”analysis of our biological existence“. By explaining matters and phenomena, she demonstrates variability, and, most importantly, movement in time and space. Yet, do the atoms comprising our DNA have their own memory as well?

Kristina Pulejkova (born in Skopje in 1988) completed her postgraduate studies in Art and Science at Central St. Martin’s College in London (2012- 2014) and obtained a Master’s degree in Experimental Animation, Painting, and Tapestry from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria (2006- 2012). Since 2013 Kristina has been part of the Oven-Pulejkova artistic duo. It aims to create a series of artworks entitled Switching – Heads, Sound Mapping (Arctic). This project relates artists to their concerns regarding the impact of climate change on the environment around the world.