SHEI TIN

Uta Bekaia x Denis Davydov Sacred Creatures: Beraqas SHEI TIN. Vishuddhas Family, 2022 Computer-generated image, NFT Edition of 1 Courtesy of Window Project & Instigators

Vishuddhas Coven of 8 unique creatures These creatures are blind, though they do have eyes. They have learned to materialize their thoughts, desires, and passion. They crystallize it, and when they are completely covered with crystals, they shed and then crystalize into myriads of jewels all-over again.

Project Description

Walter Benjamin once said that a child’s first experience of the world is not his realization that “adults are stronger but rather that he cannot make magic.” Giorgio Agamben

The joint project Sacred Creatures by the Uzbek multimedia artist Denis Davydov and the Georgian-American artist Uta Bekaia studies and gives new content and visual interpretations to avatars. The concept of Davydov and Bekaia’s first drop is based on the idea that a person’s earliest avatar is a children’s toy. The toy is the first valuable that belongs exclusively to the child as well as an artefact to which supernatural powers can be ascribed by the mere force of the imagination. The cultural horizon of both artists emerged, by their own account, as something “extremely multicultural and variegated, a paradoxical agglomeration of signs – a Molotov cocktail of images from American comics, Japanese manga, traditional toys, Western cartoons and, last but not least, first-generation computer games.” At the same time, the artists attach a lot of importance to creating their own “legendarium” – a universe populated by their characters, each of whom has a story and a personality of its own. The concept of the universe is used by the artists for good reason. As one knows, in times of trouble people tend to seek a refuge by mentally travelling to other spaces or artificial worlds governed by different types of laws (often bordering on magic). This project is conceived as a serial undertaking with each installment shedding new light on Davydov & Bekaia’s universe. Each work consists of a hand-painted watercolor sketch that is transferred into virtual space with the help of unique textures, materials and mechanisms that were not taken from reality but specially developed for the project to activate the plastic possibilities of avatars. The second series Beraqas (the Anahatas and the Vishuddha) was created at a seismic time when the world order itself was shaken. Ethnic conflicts, wars, and changes in the global political paradigm were all reflected in the artists’ reflections on how their universe should function and develop. According to Davydov and Bekaia, the Anahatas is the most empathetic family of all, precisely because the feeling of empathy has been totally atrophied in our time.