Katja Novitskova
Katja Novitskova (1984) is an artist whose work deals with the depiction of evolutional development, using the internet as her source of visual data. In the early 2010s, she was among the first artists to take up the ‘post-internet’ as subject matter and to render its aesthetics. Situated at the crossing between visual culture and science fiction, Novitskova’s ouvre induces discomfort and enstrangement by blending futuristic fantasy with everyday reality. Novitskova works mostly in installation, using photo-sculptures as her main medium.
One of Novitskova’s earliest artworks 'Post-internet Survival Guide 2010' is a pioneering handbook, which offers solutions for coping with our current condition – in which the internet has become a pre-condition and therefore the senses of humans are being flooded with signs. In 2017, Novitskova represented Estonia in 57th Venice Biennale with the exhibition 'If Only You Could See What I’ve Seen with Your Eyes', which focused on the digital culture of contemporary times, looking back at it from a science-fictional position, when the world as we know it today, didn’t exist. The project raised questions around the recognizibility of a hi-tech reality – who dares to say that our actual life is a fantastic film and the future is now?
Katja Novitskova studied semiotics at the University of Tartu, new media at the University of Lübeck and graphic design at the Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam. During 2013–2015 she was an artist-in-residence at Rijksakademie, Amsterdam. Novitskova has had a number of international personal exhibitions: Shangai Project (2017), New York City Hall Park (2017), Kunstverein Hamburg (2016), Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin (2014), Bard Center for Curatorial Studies in New York (with Timur Si-Qin) (2012) and Arcadia Missa Gallery in London (with Amalia Ulman) (2012). She has participated in group exhibitions at MoMA, NY (2015), Lyon (2015) and the 9th Berlin Biennale (2016).