STAGES ELEMENTS HUMANS
A digital video installation by Gina Czarnecki 

 Cosmetic modification, organ replacement, artificial life support systems, prosthetics, cryonics, gender alteration, cloning and genetic enhancement have all changed our perceptions of the physical body.  Gina Czarnecki's new work Stages, Elements, Humans raises the issues surrounding the possibilities of genetic engineering and what this could mean when the ideal body can be purchased as easily as cosmetic enhancement.

 The viewer enters the space inhabited by what appears to be a wall of naked human forms illuminating the otherwise empty dark space Initially appearing motionless, these figures gradually come to life. They appear to become aware of their surroundings and of the audience,. Different nuances of what is termed white skin glow, caught as if behind the screen, pressing against it, and either they or the viewer are trapped by it. Enclosed and compressed in the darkness and seemingly unaware of one another.  The abstract tones of the soundtrack compound a further sense of the figures environment and isolation.  These figures live behind the screen in a constristed cycle - Humans, or specimens suddenly conscious of their own exhibition.

 Enclosed in the space we are forced to think about the comparisons we make between our own and other bodies, what we believe is ideal.  We are quickly aware that the figures are not quite right - not quite believable and seem to change throughout.  They have all been digitally modified/altered - yet the change is un-nervingly subtle.

 Gina is an artist who is currently living and working in Scotland.

 Her previous work has been primarily single screen hybrid combinations of film, video and computer manuipulated imagery.. Her recent works include Homo-cyte a video made in collaboration with George Saxon of Housewatch UK. 1997, Versifier -a digital video installation was commissioned as part of Photo 98 and exhibited at the Ferens Gallery Hull in ROOT 98.  Stages, Elements Humans exhibitions include ISEA, Liverpool 98, Cooper Gallery Dundee, 1998, and CorpoREAL at Tullie House Carlisle, November 1998.

 Gina is currently running the Postgraduate Course in Electronic Imaging at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee. Her work is preoccupied with the re-working and reconstructing of material and the re-compositing of video frames to question the illusion of the real or actual. More recently Ginas work has revolved around issues relating to the body and its future possibilities .