MABLAB is sisters Madina and Ainura, who have a background in architecture and art and are originally from Kazakhstan. Their field of research is the process of transformation expressed in the metaphors of mutation. The chimera is one of the key images of MABLAB, continuing the basic narrative of hybridization and bringing together the metamorphosis of architectural space and the aesthetics of data visualization.


This year MABLAB debuted as curators on the Superrare platform with their collection *Mapping Web3 - Eurasia*. In the context of the debate on the erasure of borders, this project unfolds issues related to identity politics. Utopian ideas about overcoming geopolitical and national differences inevitably collide with a corpus of critiques of neocolonialism. The decolonial movement actualized in institutional discourse must also touch Web3 culture, colliding the two positions in a dialogue about the future. The synthesis of postcolonial theory and sci-fi culture reveals one of the most important crises of the mainstream—the repetitive patterns of futuristic projection presented by Western science fiction, which displaces the experience of so-called "silent cultures" in postcolonial discourse, cultures that are not expressed in a global context and have no voice.


Afrofuturism, Sinofuturism and the multiplicity of alternative projections of the future constructed in the periphery respond to the challenge of the emancipation of the imagination by re-stitching the codes of the hegemonic concept. From the idea of listening to the voices of others, the project *Mapping Web3 - Eurasia* is of particular interest, opening up new narratives for the blockchain world with critical questioning.

Digital painting. Chimera is metamorphosis of architectural space and landscape into a unique hybrid creature. Greek mythology says that Chimera was a hybrid creature, composed of more than one animal, likewise our art.  CHIMERA WHALE represents metamorphosis of life transcended through the symbolism of whale. Deeply symbolic, this magnetic creature has a meaning as great and deep as its habitat. Lines connect to lines become meshes; meshes to meshes deliver textures; textures to textures give birth to complex surfaces - to a breathtaking landscape - to a carefully sculpted architectural space.  A unique process that involves hand sculpting in different mediums from physical sculpts to a digital hand sculpting in a 3D space. The artwork comes from the project Interface, that took more than 7500 hours to develop the project and methodology and more than 350 hrs to finish one digitally hand sculpted metamorphic form. Art by MABLAB. #GUARDIAN91 Geo Location: https://bit.ly/3BdEaSk  

CHIMERA WHALE

Falconer

Magnum 75 #104 by Lorenzo Meloni. Palmyra, Syria. 2016

Words of War #1

Aurora Borealis

Today, the stream, as one of the key states of contemporaneity, is alienated from its original meaning and represents more of an allegory of the permanent movement of data. Before the advent of blockchain technology, a work of art was usually imagined as a physical object, including storage media (in the case of video formats). The circulation of artworks could not be conceived in the dynamics of capital flow in NFT markets. Marketplaces trading physical non-renewable goods involve logistics and insurance companies, operating within familiar timeframes. NFT offers a format for sharing information of collectible value that we can own this very moment, literally in two clicks. It shortens the distance between desire and action, stimulating processes of acceleration and challenging the traditional art market system. However, any fascination with the rejection of the hierarchy of expertise ends after the first experience of scrolling through aggregators and encountering an abundance of images competing for attention without intermediaries or filters in the form of curators, institutions or galleries. The authentic (meaning endowed with an aura) token as an intangible object points to the author—their ideas, methods, values, and digital footprint. However, at this point not all of the stream of images claims the epithet "art,” and most content suggests the need for a reconsideration of the use of "art" as a noun in relation to the world of NFT. Perhaps NFTs exist independently of the art industry and the need to correlate with its history. On the other hand, authors produce digital objects within the framework of aesthetic experience, which gives grounds for the analysis of the images of NFT within the more general optics of the evolution of a global visual language. Reflecting from the perspective of an imaginary museum, in this selection I was guided by the correlation between the authors and their expressive methods and the art world, speculatively placing NFT works in conventional physical exhibitions and testing their relevance in the territory of institutional collections.

CHIMERA WHALE

Auction

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