Master Libraries by Sofy Yuditskaya, web art, 2005
This collection is called Master Libraries, and its the 256 most used colors organized by value of the old masters. You can look at all of them together and compare, who had more access to cobalt, that the italians had more extensive collections of siennas and umbers and so on. It's also about information and digitization, and how our perception changes according to the technology we use. The paintings of the old masters were so rich, but these paintings will never have that same depth of color because computer processing has finite capability for color values; 256 units per channel. It's also a visualization of how we break up and store information digitally, how we boil it down to 'essentials' according to technological capability, how we can boil down something as complex as art into color swatches, to go with the couch.
Sofy Yuditskaya
On a cold and stormy night in late November, Sofy is born, in Experimental Birth Clinic Number 26, City of Moscow, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. In 1989 she gives up all nationality and identity documents and becomes a true global citizen--unattached and untraceable.
She adopts a nomadic life in the proper tradition of her Siberian ancestry, passing through most of Western Europe as well as the East and Gulf coasts of the North American Continent.
In 2004, she decides to consummate the perfect union of renaissance and industrial age ideals by officially enlisting to work for the advancement of science and art and begins her studies at The Cooper Union in NYC.
Since receiving her degree in 2008, she has pursued continued experimentation in the decentralization of human subjectivity through technology and propaganda.
She currently resides in Linz, Austria, where she works as an ideological mercenary for ARS Electronica.
