Leni Smoragdova

About Transaction #transactioninselfie

In the past 6 years I have developed my art project and research about hidden faces in modern society. I named this project “Transactions.” I have looked and observed through different angles and points of view in contemporary society, such as social, political, financial and ethical. The idea of Art Transaction was first conceived as an everyday interaction between people in the modern world. Transaction on a daily basis in financial terms means buyer and seller exchange an asset for payment. To elevate my philosophy of Transaction I looked into the conditions of people losing of spiritual realities. Transaction arose as a reaction to the cult of the “Golden Calf”–when people turned to worship an icon–in this case, money–in the absence of God’s presence. This was inspired by the generations of the 80’s and 2000’s. “Hidden Faces” is the result and depiction of portraits of people who cover their faces. 
Idea: Selfie / Hidden Faces

I would like to propose that people from around the world submit their unique visions of “Hidden Faces.” #Selfie a popular manifestation of identity on social media like Facebook and Instagram. Taking Selfie idea and turning it into #HiddenFaceswould be a declaration and depiction of critical reality as a litmus test: Transaction goes beyond just an image or idea, it would create a cluster of images and self-expressions that connect people from around the world and prove it’s real. This would make an international statement of “Transaction Network Art” on a global stage. 
Proposal & Submission 
I would like you to take a snapshot of yourself (Selfie) with your face hidden. Please see included images as examples. Please write a short description of your Transaction of your own experience in your life or your native country using your native language. Please send me your Selfie / Hidden Face and your description to me by email: ng.pittora@gmail.com

https://www.instagram.com/transaction_/  

More than 6 years I spend my art-studies on the theme of hidden individuals in the society of the 21st century. Or of depersonalization and individualization at the same time. This project has received the General name of Transaction. It had affected various spheres of human existence: from socio-political to the existential.

Will the number of installations of art Transaction, which I enjoyed until recently. Why until recently? Because this art is not the place. I constantly come up with new ideas. And even what I'm writing at the moment, can be supplemented in the following.

The notion of transaction is rooted in two fields of knowledge - Economics and psychology. In Economics, this is a simple Bank transaction, transaction, the act of material exchange. In psychology - elementary, as if purified from complex socio-playing games operation of communication between people. A simple scheme of exchange of energies, which can be a normal, mutually beneficial "deal", and may be carefully veiled "robbery".

Person Transaction is a set of certain functionality and a certain kind of mentality. Philosophy Transaction is a way through art to show the imposed rules of society, "deals", and as a result, the appearance of a "hidden faces", as well as what is happening with the man himself, when he makes incorrect internal transaction, enter into a Covenant with the destructive to the psyche forces. Thus as objects of study I only take relatively normal people. From the nature of the criminal or of the mentally ill in the calculation will not take.

The art of the Transaction arose as a reaction to the cult of the "Golden calf" of the generations of the 1980s-2000s years all over the world. This new cult was gradually formed everything that happened in the XX century. The man in the center of the universe, the ego in the center of the hostility to him of society. The worship of speed, the car, the rebellion and purely materialism. The shock of the world wars and, as a consequence, the growth of distrust of the people themselves. At the same time is more primitive understanding of freedom, the destruction or expulsion of smart goals, forming companies is not the creators and workers and passive consumers... It is clear that modern civilization is impossible without consumers. We pay for technologies that are very expensive. But all this has put people in terms of loss of spiritual realities, and sometimes even to loss of sense of reality. And led to the promotion of the image of "the hidden persons". Man was destroyed. Modular, consisting of many parts, each of which simply responds to a particular external stimulus, the agent needs, often artificially formed. All somehow talking about myself as a person natural.

Much the same is happening with society in General. Society of the 21st century globally inconsistent. On the one hand, this desire for harmony, stability, offset, and even complete loss of moral values that are important at least as checked the "tools" of survival. The pursuit of harmony is easily replaced by a desire for personal comfort as to the purpose of life. And the lack of "traditional", familiar to of a people's moral compass is easily camouflaged in what is known as multiculturalism. A moral principle thus becomes zyblemye and easily adapts to any specific human need.

But if you think about negative or critical component of the art Transaction. I don't want to teach anything or something radical to fix in this world. Besides, I'm a believer and understand that what is going to happen. Just as an honest artist, I paint everything I see and how I see it. And here Transaction acts as a litmus paper showing the critical degree of reality.

The main positive aim of the art Transaction is finding a balance between the spiritual and the material world. The art of the Transaction goes beyond just images or ideas and increasingly begins to acquire a social and psychological connotation.

Now I will show you that the Transaction is a natural element of the psyche, instilled in us from birth, as instincts of self-preservation, dominance, and reproduction. That there is absolute good, even if it rarely make sense to us, and almost always manifests itself in our actions in their entirety, there is no absolute evil, it tells us our natural "child" Transaction. "Adult" is responsible for the contacts with the surrounding world and people. It negotiates and is responsible for the actions. And "elderly" all the checks with the reference, and correlates with the experience of ancestors, and ultimately with God. Nothing new, as you can see, I'm not saying.

But this post is not a treatise on good and evil, although sometimes it is quite boring.

Of course, a Transaction characteristic of mimicry. This art must be sensitive, organically fit into any innovations. Maybe it's bipolar - contains the beginning as the creative and destructive, depending in whose hands and under what sauce will be served.

Various ideological "noise" of our time, distortion of the truth, which is what it is and a number of private relative truths, the stream of misinformation, too subjective (in practice, the deaf - cannot hear the other) or too objective (blind in practice - see detail) view, as well as the lack of goals understanding the essence of the nature of the Transaction, - all this leads to the black side: when a man ceases to consciously perceive the information and settled for chewed or missing through the prism of the "vicious wit" fraud. Then he becomes a puppet and a hidden face, in the hands of the puppeteer.

Such facts in the history of the past and present are many.

But it took me a long time to understand also that the positive nature of the Transaction and the desire of companies to conceal individuals at some point may coincide. Without ritual and ritual is indispensable. Otherwise there'd be total war of all against all and everything for defending their emotions and positions.

If there was a society consists of individualists, it is, of course, everyone would have complete freedom. But the call to total freedom is a call to anarchy. Art Transaction - an attempt to protect themselves from anarchy.

My position was made in 2013, the exhibition Transaction in Amsterdam. I knew then that Transaction - even if it is not for art, but just my personal brand is and politics, and sociology, and religion, and the arts. The basis of the Transaction is not fashionable now metaphysics, epistemology fashionable and well-forgotten by many ethics. Only on this basis can we formulate a theory of Transaction and translate it into practice.

I want to emphasize that my goal is not sociology or psychology, not politics and not religion itself. I'm an artist. I'm interested in people, human nature, man's relationship to reality.