Mārtiņš Ratniks

Mārtiņš Ratniks works with video, installations and graphic design. He is a member of the artists’ group Famous Five (F5), which boldly came onto the art scene in the late 1990s. Ratniks is an artist/researcher who explores the intersection of science and art. In his works, interest in the experimental and often paradoxical manifestations of digital media language encourage transition from entertainment to philosophical messaging.  In Ratniks’ works, the signs of contemporary mass culture can coexist with experiments aimed at visualising physical processes, while graphical and spatial synthesis is employed to seek new formats for perceiving visual culture.

In the oscillographically dynamic video work “Projections” the electronic line forms a fragile lace pattern through its endless figure of eight trail, which gradually transforms the whole screen area from black darkness to bright white, before turning the process in the opposite direction. While this work may be viewed as a commentary on the formation of spatial illusion and the specifics of the individual’s visual perception, one can also appreciate the potential for interpreting the shifting symbolic form in terms of movement, infinity and the uniting of opposites. 

Projections. 2011.