TAMAGOCHI

The Visual Culture Research Center of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, with the support of the STEDLEY ART FOUNDATION.

TAMAGOCHI is a collaborative project involving various artists who share a concern about the possible future of nature in a world where media space is becoming a single dimension of existence, replacing the natural environment.

Modern technological capabilities allow people to choose the information they consume and filter out unpleasant messages, avoiding unnecessary stress. Ultimately, information about the world around us can easily turn into entertainment, while the heroes of today's "family" stories, often seen as entertainment, are actually in an extremely vulnerable and threatened state. On screens in the subway, or while escaping everyday problems and looking at animals, we are unaware of the boundaries of our own perception.

For modern residents of large cities, digital space is often the only source of knowledge about wildlife. It does not exist for them outside the screen, in real physical space. Even if all living creatures disappeared from our planet, they would continue to appear in television programs and on computer screens. Media space is becoming a kind of nature reserve, providing an afterlife for flora and fauna.

The project TAMAGOCHI explores media space as a means of conscious or unconscious manipulation of information about the world of living nature, drawing attention to the threat that what exists only in virtual form today may become reality tomorrow.

Participating artists:
Fedir Balashov
Yaroslav Kolomiychuk
Maksym Nimenko
Larysa Polishchuk-Rusina
Denys Salivanov
Davyd Chychkan
Alina Yakubenko
Ubik Group