IGOR ELUKOV

The Book of Miracles

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The series is titled after the Augsburg Book of Miracles, a 16th century German illustrated manuscript listing the supernatural phenomena from the Flood to the time of the book’s completion. The events described in the manuscript reveal the involvement of God in the human world. In contrast, I read “The Book of Miracles” from the position of cosmocentrism. It is a story about forces and elements that are indifferent to us and capable of destroying us; and about the need to seek harmony with these forces. About good and unkind premonitions and fragility of life. This is a view at an ecosystem in which it is impossible to separate a man from nature and nature from space. My goal was to find technology that allows only partial control of the result, so that each picture was taken in collaboration with the elements, landscape, fauna. Creating images in reality, rather than using computer technology, gave the necessary restrictions on the artist’s “all-powerful”, helping to compress the essence of the vision into a concentrated form, as in the art of Japanese haiku. Production was based on staged photographs of real objects and locations, the use of pyrotechnic effects, the creation of light installations, large- scale physical layouts integrated into the natural environment, and work with animals.

Igor Elukov (b. 1991) is a visual artist, working with photography, filmmaker, who comes from a small village along the Peza River in the country’s northern Arkhangelsk region, and is currently based in Saint Petersburg. Igor studied painting and started doing photography in 2012. From 2012 to 2016 he worked on a series “Severe”, documenting the life of the Russian far North. Since 2016 Igor shifted his focus to staged photography. His method is close to pre-CGI cinema, employing models and props, in situ shooting and constructed sets.

Copyright © Igor Elukov, all rights reserved

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