In Materia, with macro lens and small handheld digital microscope in hand, Telengut explores found objects and her local surroundings. With a macro lens and small handheld digital microscope in hand, she enters a visual territory that ordinary cinematography does not usually reach. She also incorporates images of skin and hair juxtaposed with shots of stones, revealing the shared material qualities between bodies and landscapes and the interconnection between human bodies and geological history.
Telengut writes, “at a macro scale, the familiar suddenly becomes topographical, the ridges on a small stone catch light like folded metal. Pushing further into the microscopic realm exposes even richer textures that are invisible to the naked eye yet carry the material ‘fingerprints’ of each medium.”
Choosing to work with a portable, low-tech setup as opposed to the calibrated optics of a biology lab, Telengut’s visual tools preserve a slight roughness, collapsing the distance between scientific observation and artistic image-making. She explains that “the macro lens offers cinematic intimacy, while the microscope pushes beyond the limits of human vision, turning ordinary objects into abstract terrain. Together they blur the boundary between factual detail and poetic interpretation.” Through this process, the artist creates a frame for herself and for the viewer to see and feel the material world anew.
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Materia is the third commission in The Goldfarb Gallery’s digital art program stream, which supports born-digital and internet art commissions and presentations.