Synchrodogs

Since 2008, Ukrainian artists Tania Shcheglova and Roman Noven have been working together to visually construct a new reality, which they have materialized through an artistic duo called Synchrodogs. Each new image pushes the boundaries of artistic mediums and disciplines. Their work, in constant tension, oscillates between reality and illusion, natural and artificial, obvious and unknown. Synchrodogs is resolutely unclassifiable. At a time when images generated by artificial intelligence tools are invading the web, a quick glance at their output could lead to confusion. Yet, the two artists did not wait for the arrival of this technology to challenge reality. For fifteen years, they have been creating their own reality. It would be unrealistic to consider the creation of Synchrodogs solely in terms of photography. Their artistic process is multidisciplinary, while their works firmly place them within the continuity of art history.

 

Synchrodogs is, above all, a performative work. The duo developed a meditation technique that has been an integral part of their creative process for over a decade. Today, they capture a subtle moment between waking and sleeping, then note down what they have just observed in their drowsiness before recreating these visions through their art. Their photographs are, in reality, stagings of nighttime dreams and visions drawn directly from their subconscious. Working with their subconscious is for them a way to access the most original and pure source of creation. Performance is also manifested in their constant search for wild places across the globe. By pushing the body out of its comfort zone, the duo demonstrates the human body's capacity to constantly push the boundaries of its natural habitat. Synchrodogs is also an ode to the body as an aesthetic motif. The body, naked, is never sexualized. Bare human skin does not appear sensual, but rather vulnerable. It defines the shapes of the body, buried beneath a variety of materials, natural or artificial. Reduced to mere subjects, men cease to be predators to blend into the elements and become one with the planet.

 

Synchrodogs' practice can be seen as a continuation of Land Art, an artistic movement that emerged in the late 1960s in the United States, which considers earth and landscape as both raw materials and surfaces for inscription. In reality, they deconstruct this movement, dismantling the know-how of the previous century to propose a contemporary version in line with the challenges of our time. Their work documents the new forms that the Earth adopts as a result of human intervention in environmental processes. In Inner Garden Project , the central figure is a human being capable of finding harmony in nature, through escape and deep introspection. The work was created in the Carpathian Mountains of Ukraine, a place of power in constant transformation due to human intrusions into nature. Synchrodogs is a call for collective responsibility. Halfway between a dream and a call for a human life that is more respectful of the planet that hosts it, Synchrodogs creates a new form of art: "environmental surrealism."

 

 

Text written by Annelise Stern - copyright ART GIRLS