Maria Arkhipova. Fragmented Reality

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

The Moscow Museum of Modern Art and the Free Workshops School of Contemporary Art present Fragmented Reality, an immersive exhibition by Maria Arkhipova that explores how humans and machines reconstruct lost fragments of history and the errors that might emerge in this process.

Visitors enter a virtual recreation of an ancient Roman villa, modelled after the architecture of late Roman Empire in what is now modern-day Britain. Here, surviving wall paintings, mosaics, and architectural elements are 'restored', not to their original state, but with digital distortion. Glitches, compression artifacts, and noise become part of the aesthetic, with technical glitches becoming a philosophical commentary on memory and interpretation. The exhibition experiments with 'digital archaeology', where algorithms reconstruct an ancient villa not from accurate data but from fragments of memory, errors and digital errors.

Using 3D visualization, VR, and game design elements, the project reveals how digital tools influence our understanding of history. The more reality has eroded, the more algorithms compensate, and the gap between the authentic and the reconstructed becomes more and more apparent.

Alongside an interactive VR environment, looping GIF screens, and a gamified project designed by the artist, the exhibition features physical mosaics, this classic technique being interwoven with digital disruptions. Contemporary digital technologies are not only changing our present but are also actively used in reconstructing the past. Fragmented Reality reflects on the fragility of cultural heritage, on the inevitability of flaws in restoration, and on how technologies meant to preserve the past inevitably alter it.

CURATOR

Asya Yudaeva

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Maria Arkhipova is an interdisciplinary artist working with mosaics, digital art and glitch art. Her works include generative art, 3D videos, and GIF animations. Her main medium is mosaic, which she merges with other techniques. Her practice explores human interaction with technologies, the issues of unreliability of historical reconstructions and aesthetics of digital errors. Maria Arkhipova graduated from the Stroganov Moscow State Academy of Arts and Industry (Department of Monumental and Decorative Painting). In 2018, she took part in the Open Laboratory of the Department of Film and Media Art at the Pushkin Moscow State Museum of Fine Arts and graduated from the MMOMA Free Workshops School of Contemporary Art, the Contemporary Art course. Maria is based in Moscow.

ABOUT THE SCHOOL

The Free Workshops School of Contemporary Art is an educational platform launched by the Moscow Museum of Modern Art for young artists and curators. It was founded in 1992 by a group of artists and art historians, including Alexander Ponomarev, Vladimir Kupriyanov, Vladimir Nasedkin, and Moscow State University professors Vera Dazhina and Valery Turchin. The students are invited to attend workshops of the best speakers, successful cultural leaders, well-known philosophers, and theorists of contemporary art. Through the educational programme, young artists and curators immerse themselves in the art world, participate in workshops, group exhibitions and festivals. As a part of the Museum, Free Workshops offer their audience a unique opportunity to study theoretical and practical aspects of contemporary art while being in its epicentre. At every stage of their journey, the artists are supported by the Museum and the School. They are encouraged to take part in group exhibitions (annual exhibitions of young art, and group projects by young curators) and to have solo exhibitions (MMOMA Young Art Support Programme).

IMAGES

1. Maria Arkhipova. A fragment from the Backup.vizantiya.obj series, mosaic, mixed media, 73x40 cm, 2020-2024

2. Maria Arkhipova. A fragment from the game Backup_villa_V783_fin2, 8xr, 2024

3. Maria Arkhipova. A fragment from the game Backup_villa_V783_fin2, 8xr, 2024

4. Maria Arkhipova. A fragment from the game Backup_villa_V783_fin2, 8xr, 2024

5. Maria Arkhipova. A fragment from the game Backup_villa_V783_fin2, 8xr, 2024