E_Kostenko – Elena Kostenko

Between the decisive moment and a snapshot in Sepuya’s Dark Room (_2070386)

by E_Kostenko 16 September 20228 March 2024Comments are Disabled

In this essay, I will seek to examine the works of contemporary photographer Paul Mpagi Sepuya. I will elaborate on the conceptual and aesthetic components in his photographs, with an attentive review of their careful execution of the ‘metapictorial’ experience. To provide ample insight into Sepuya’s works, I will preface the analysis by first relaying …

Gothic features in the architectural ensemble of Moscow State University

by E_Kostenko 24 June 20227 May 2024Comments are Disabled

After The Great October Socialist Revolution, the government led by Stalin strived to eliminate everything that was linked to the capitalistic past and to establish a new Socialist Utopia. To demonstrate the great achievements of the new country, in 1935 Stalin initiated the reconstruction of the Soviet Union’s capital, which was named the Moscow General …

Metaphorical Glitch: Titian’s Repentant Mary Magdalene in the perspective of Media Studies

by E_Kostenko 14 May 20228 March 2024Comments are Disabled

The smooth and pale skin of Mary in Titian’s Repentant Mary Magdalene (Fig.1) is partly covered with coarse clothes, and her transparent tears run off her face, which is raised to the sky in prayer. In the background, there are dark, rough rocks and an infinitely dramatic landscape. One step closer and the experience of …

Catch me if you can: The Paradoxical State of the Museum of Glitch Aesthetics

by E_Kostenko 1 June 20208 March 2024Comments are Disabled

In 1962, the first American astronaut John Glenn gave an account of the slang term Glitch as a technical problem, a simultaneous malfunction, caused by a change of voltage in an electrical circuit. Glenn did not invent the term himself; in the 1940s, the word glitch was frequently used in the vocabulary of the radio …