Last updated: February 5, 2024
Born 1986 in St. Petersburg, Russia, lives and works in Vienna & Tokyo Web: kraft.studio | studio.work | wwww.work Email: [email protected] Platforms: @egorkraft
Egor Kraft (born 1986 in St. Petersburg, raised in Sweden, lives and works in Tokyo & Vienna) is an interdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of arts, technology, computer science, film, philosophy and research. Egor acquired his education from Gerlesborg School of Fine Art (SE), Moscow Rodchenko Art School (RU), Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (AT), Central Saint Martin’s College (UK), Tokyo Geidai University of The Arts (JP) and ‘The New Normal’ at Strelka Institute (RU). He was affiliated as a research fellow at the University of Southampton (UK) and Tokyo Geidai University of the Arts (JP). He participated in Ars Electronica (AT), ‘Open Codes’ at ZKM (DE), 5th Ural Industrial Biennial, 5th and 2nd Moscow International Biennials for Young Art, WRO Biennial (PL), IMPAKT Festival (NL), Vienna Contemporary (AT), Manifesta X (RU), WRONG Biennale (WEB), 1st Kyiv Biennale (UA) and a number of international shows including those in Hermitage Museum, Russian Museum, ZKM (DE), Garage Museum (RU), MOMMA, MAMM, Art & History Museum Brussels (BE), Short Film Festival Cologne (DE) and many other international events. He lectured and led guest seminars in Winchester Schools of Art (UK), Royal College of Art (UK), New Media Lab (RU), HSE University (RU), University of Arts Linz (AT), University of Hong Kong (HK) and other institutions and programmes. His essays and research papers were published in peer reviewed journals and presented at Art Machines 2 (HK), Politics Of The Machines (DE), Impakt Festival (NL) and other conferences.
Egor has received New Technological Art Award in 2022 (BE) and Honorary Mention S+T+ARTS Prize 2023 (EU). He was also nominated for various prizes including the State Innovation Art Prize twice (RU), Kuryokhin Prize twice (RU), Kandinsky Prize (RU), Creative Enterprise Award (UK), the Pulsar Prize (FR) and Lumen Prize (UK) & Austrian Blockchain Award (AT). He is a fellow of STARTS Residencies (EU/UK), Garage Museums Art & Technology 2019 (RU/DE), ArtEcho (EU), Escape Fake (EU) and BMKÖS Austrian federal grant programmes. In 2017 he was included in the New East 100, a list of people, places and projects shaping our world today by London based Calvert Journal.
Aesthetics of industrialisation, shock-&-awe campaigns, tactical trickery between facts & fiction, fully automated ruralisms, speculative narratives, thought-objects prototypes, deep timescales, proto-continental geographies, self-declared enclaves & self-sovereign networks, ultra-wideband connectivites, exponentially increasing capacities, monopolised data echo chambers, media geologies, logistics & information superhighways, techno-organic bodies, politics of planetarity, synthetic cognitions & sensations, quantitative machine-rendered regimes, non-human agencies, ultrasonic interventions, big-time proposals, ambient security protocols, new memory architectures, unfettered data collection regimes & wholesale surveillance, digital autocracy circumventions, unstable climates, feedback loops, genetic machine developments & more.
All these and many other cognitive perspectives reconstitute the aspect of what we define as human in a new geological epoch. In how far is this aspect subject to technology? Is it recognised as autonomous, unpredictable, divergent or diverse? How does it coexist along with the ever-growing order of machine rendered regimes? A further investigation of these industrial conditions suggests new political, ethical, philosophical & aesthetic challenges. How are these challenges manifested within the artistic production, as in primordially ‘human’ project? And does the notion of a ‘human’ project necessarily suggest its human-centric nature? In my work, I'm concerned with the ontologies of human and non-human agencies, epistemics of technologies often expressed in a form of speculative models or thought–object experiments and dynamic community operated networks. It involves artificial information systems, computational technologies, films, interventions, texts & various material productions. Via speculative narratives, I tend to highlight frictions between the human reasoning and quantitative orders rendered by machines, industrialisation & anthropogenic interventions at large.
EDUCATION EXPERIENCE
2024 Institute for Postnatural Studies | Madrid, ESP PgD Postnatural Independent Program
2022-2023 Geidai University of the Arts | Tokyo, JPN Research visitor in the Intermedia Arts department under supervision of prof. Kiyoshi Furokawa
2017 Strelka Institute: The New Normal | Moscow, RUS Programme director Benjamin H. Bratton
2014-2015 Central Saint Martins College | UAL London, GBR Fine Arts, track 4D
2011-2016 Academy of Fine Arts | Vienna, AUT Diploma studies in Arts & Media
2009-2011 The Rodchenko Art School | Moscow, RUS Class prof. Alexei Shulgin | BFA, Media Art
2007-2008 The Gerlesborg School of Fine Art | Bohuslän, SWE Foundation year
1998-2004 Art School №1 | St. Petersburg, RUS Prelimiary Artistic Studies
HONOURS & AWARDS
2024 Falling Walls Science Summit 2024 | Winner for the Art & Science Category | Berlin,DEU
2023 Lumen Prize | Award Winner | GBR
2023 Austrian Blockchain Award in ‘Best smart technology’ | Vienna, AUT
2023 S+T+ARTS Prize Honorary Mention | EU
2022 NTAA: New Technological Art Award | Jury Award Winner, BEL
2021 Re:Humanism, 2nd Edition | Winner, ITA
2020 Top 50 Most Promising Russian Artists by The Art Newspaper
2020 Lumen Prize | Shortlisted, GBR
2020 Born Digital Award nominee, WEB
2020 Listed in 49ART
2019 Kandinsky Prize | Young Artist of the Year nominee, RUS
2019 Garage Museum Art & Technology Grant winner, RUS | DEU
2019 Innovation Prize | New Generation nominee, RUS
2019 S+T+ARTS Residencies fellow, EU
2019 Kuryokhin Prize nominee, RUS
2018 Pulsar Prize Finalist | Paris, FRA
2017 New East 100 by Calvert Journal, GBR
2017 Innovation Prize | New Generation nominee, RUS
2015 Nova Art Prize nominee, RUS
2014 Kuryokhin Prize nominee, RUS
2014 Creative Enterprise Award nominee | London, GBR
2017–2022 Artistic & design direction at Ethereum Swarm | A software nd a protocol for decentralised storage on a blockchain network
University of Art & Design Linz | Kunstuniversität Linz, AUT Department: Institut für Medien & Visuelle Kommunikation Course leader: Art and image production in the context of Al
2020-2022 ITMO University | St. Petersburg, RUS Art & Science MA programme. Course tutor: The Work of Art in the Age of Algorithmic Reproduction