Consciousness Of Continuity

Interview with Natalia Evelyn Bencicova.

The artist reflects on her evolution and stylistic journey, revealing how her work explores a subtle balance between the real and the subconscious. Inspired by cinema, theatre, and architecture, she brings to life visual narratives born in her mind that pull the viewer into a space of introspection and emotional complexity. Discussing themes such as identity, technology, and human behavior, Evelyn shares her creative process, influences, and ongoing exploration within an enigmatic vision that does not provide answers but raises questions and challenges perspectives.

Your art delves deep and creates another dimension, the materialisation of a state between the real and the subconscious. Has this attitude and way of seeing things always existed? Were there different phases before you found your stylistic identity?

I believe that the sense develops with time, growth, and experience. As you rightly say in my practice, thinking and seeing are superior to mastering a tool of capturing. This way is formed in us, and develops much earlier than when encountering photography or another medium of expression. I first held a camera at around 18 years old after eye correction surgery, but being a curious and inventive child I have spent all my young years fantasising and imagining so at that point, many images were already made in my mind. I used to spend hours observing a single object, or hundreds of windows, seen from our tiny flat inside of a huge housing block growing up in suburbs in Slovakia. Instead of capturing I was inventing the entire narratives, complex stories of what I could not see through lit rectangles so similar to the screen of a photograph. Saying a story through fragments and gestures, with a fascination for what is hidden, beyond or in-between which translates into my work and way of perceiving. There have been many other stages as I gradually changed and refused to stick with “something that works”. The transitions are subtle but constant, often noticed only with the distance of time, retrospectively. All of that is my stylistic identity, it is my life, influences, and everything that happens in it. I’m strongly connected to my practice and I suppose it will never be another way.

Everyone has distinctive traits, details, and elements with which they recognise a connection, an innate empathy. What are these for you, both stylistically and aesthetically? Are there things you feel particularly drawn to or that, over time, have become constants in your life?

Professionally speaking I’m largely inspired by film and theatre. Often I hear that my works remind me of a movie scene or a stage. It is intrinsically what I do, building a world in which the story unfolds. The minimal, washed out, or reduced aesthetics I’m recognised for, serve to leave a spotlight on what is important, a key element for understanding. The rest is left to be told by the absence of information, space free for the reflection of the viewer. Everyone has their way of connecting the pieces but every object, gesture, or use of significant color is deliberate and meaningful. I’m also creatively drawn to architecture which appears almost in all the projects either as background or even protagonist. Whether it is the use of building style to define a political regime or societal programming, nostalgia, gentrification, or a sense of identity I’m very interested in how much can be understood by the spaces we build, destroy, and what surrounds us. But most of all I’m interested in human stories. Often through a slightly personal layer, I try to reflect on much larger issues that connect us all. There might be individuals, the representatives of certain groups, or scenes acting as examples but often they only point the way to very complex topics, which my works react to but do not manage to grasp.

“I believe that the sense develops with time, growth, and experience”

created with Enes Güç
Created with Enes Güç

Every stimulus leads to a reaction. What types of emotions or thoughts make up a meaningful visual experience for you? And consequently, what emotions or thoughts would you like to be linked to you and your art?

This ties well with the previous question, what I do is only part of the puzzle. I created it because I feel a need to add to things I deeply care about. Deep care can have many forms and nuances, ranging from adoration, to hate and sorrow. Any emotion that moves us has a place in art, as long as its intention is not to hurt and discredit the ones who do not deserve it. Regarding the reaction, I like to keep things open. I often say that my works are enigmas and open ends, rather asking questions than giving answers. It shall be a mirror, not a clear definition. It does not show “how is it” but “what do you think or feel it is”, one’s standpoint to what is depicted. As I touch on larger themes without the capacity to contain them fully I would hope that it awakes the curiosity of the viewers to further explore the topic. Visual speaks through surfaces, signs, and cracks that take one inside.Even though I like this language of appearances to stand separately, or rather independently, there is often text accompanying the project, as another layer for those curious to dive deeper. I love words and language, which has been my first even medium, and now more and more resurfaces in current practice.

Your works seem like a cinematic frame or a glimpse into another dimension or scene. If you could choose to project yourself into a film, a play, or a book, which would you choose?

Such a great question:) I love the early films of​​ Andrzej Żuławski, the religious mysticism, political coding, and exquisite magical but haunted atmosphere. For the same reasons I adore movies of Czechoslovak New Wave like Věra Chytilová or Juraj Herz’s film Creamtor, I discovered some of them quite recently and they made me so much closer and more appreciative of the culture I come from. It is surreal, twisted phantasies of various kinds but all very symbolic. Even though I take equally as much inspiration and references from literature, it is harder to choose one as I read mostly, or even only theoretic books focused on philosophy and sociology. My favorites are books and essays by Jean Baudrillard, Michelle Foucault, Susan Sontag, and Donna Haraway. I also adore the writing of Bell Hooks, Audrey Lorde, and Simone De Beauvoir. But if I should project myself into a genre I would choose feminist sci-fi, even though I do not read it specifically, I find it very interesting as a theme to explore in the role of a character.

“I often say that my works are enigmas and open ends, rather asking questions than giving answers.”

Created with Enes Güç and Studio Labour

If you could add a soundtrack, what melody or piece of music would you give the observer while they are in front of your paintings, something that amplifies your expression to the fullest? What would it be?

As I work quite a lot with moving images, both in video, 3D, and VR and so often with sounds, I would choose the work of my collaborators. I had the honor to work with sound-artists I admire like Studio Labour, Petra Hermanova, ScreenNoise, and Arielle Esther and I cannot wait for this list to grow. Collaboration is a building block of my practice and I love the challenge of speaking different languages like visuals and sounds yet putting them together to tell a story. When I started to work with VR and video, I was filled with the excitement I long waited for, feeling quite limited and dissatisfied with photography after a few years. It was like the door of infinite possibilities had opened, with so many tools to use conceptually. Next to movement and scale, it was auditory decisions one can make: How does the voice sound? Is it in front, behind you, or inside of one’s head? In my audiovisual pieces like Artificial Tears and Æther, my text and voice are used to narrate the story, mastered by collaborating sound artists. In overall music composition I give notes and comments but then leave a free hand to create. Trust and mutual respect are the keys to rewarding ease of long-term collaboration when you know you will each or all bring different aspects but there will be ways they can coexist.

There is a dreamy and disturbing atmosphere at the same time in your works. What in your life disturbs and intrigues you at the same time? Something that fascinates you, but also creates contrasting sensations, and that you pour into your works?

I like the contrasting feeling that many themes carry, they are built on and further spread mixed emotions in which boundaries are not strictly given. I’m aware that a large part of society likes to categorise good and bad, the beautiful and the ugly. As you already suspected I’m not one of them and rather the one who wants to challenge such dichotomies. I’m aware that there are things evil and unacceptable, but that does not mean they have to be unheard of. In my world-view ignorance is not bliss but one of the darkest emotions there is. If I don’t like something, or I am disturbed it is good to ask why. There is nothing left to question on images of human suffering about their moral message even though they can serve a different purpose. But reflecting on my work I often deal with ambiguous concepts like innocence, belief, obedience, or technology which do not have such clear moral connotations . They can be both beneficial and harmful depending on the context.

An artistic career is made of pure personal expression, but also of interaction with what is completely foreign, pushing you out of a state of conformity. Has this ever happened to you? Have there been collaborations or interactions you never expected, even with other sectors or unexpected tools?

Allowing oneself to merge with anything different, or other, whether it is a person, medium, or standpoints, opens us and widens our limits. It is a process, sometimes even a struggle but it subsequently makes us grow. There have been countless such moments. It leads me to memories of our first project with my friend and first collaborator Adam Csoka Keller. We were still teenagers when we spent our free time next to school building elaborate phantasies and trying hard to persuade people to work with us at the start of our careers when nothing came too easy. Some of our childlike curiosities let us dive into the question of our national history and even societal wounds without our prior knowledge, like in the project Asymptote where architectural monumentality and decorative patterns revealed to us the modes of behaviour indoctrinated in generations of our parents and grandparents, still present in our society and behaviours today. In audio-visual work, it started with Studio Labour, or Colin and Farah who gave me absolute trust in the moment I needed to transform the most. With processes based on research and willingness to experiment and cross boundaries of different media developed ongoing collaboration.I want to mention nine—sum sorcery which premiered at Berlin Atonal. With Enes Guc, another good friend and close collaborator we created a visual part, and even though it was our first work together I felt like we communicated without words, minds connected. We received the final sound composition only later, and when we played it with the visual it was fitting perfectly in the manner of higher synchronicity. Zeynep Schilling added graphic lettering, and when the work was performed live by Labour and Hani Mojtahedy, our work all presented for the first time, seen by thousands of people at once inside the monumental building of Kraftwerk, I recognised that this is what I want to do: to co-create experiences.

Speaking of this, what is your next step? Where do you want to push yourself? Do you have something planned already?

I currently work on two personal projects. One is the 3rd chapter of the audiovisual project Æther on which we collaborate with Samson G Balfour Smith. Chapter O focuses on the re-translation of Genesis story, while Chapter I speaks of violent separation from the soil and earth-bound beliefs. As our process is a free flow Im curious where it will take us in the next months to come.
Another one is the free continuation of the project Artificial Tears which is, for now, titled Second Virgin. There are several topics I repeatedly explore, as the issues shift or progress and one of them is the relationship between (predominantly female) body, behavior, and technology. In 2017 I looked at AI voice assistants and the effect of their programming on society. This all led me to explore the notion of females as an obedient servant or perfectly functioning tools, a toxic pattern repeated in literature, cinema as well as latest tech developments. In the current time of automated sex dolls and AI girlfriends, I feel like I want to dive back in and look at its effect on physicality and intimacy under the light of recent inventions. I will start publishing the project in the next weeks, and will continuously develop it. If you are curious about my work please check my not-very-modern website, and for updates and timelines, I keep Instagram most updated. I always want to push myself towards new horizons, and places of mind I yet don’t even know of.

created with Enes Güç for Petra hermanova

Consciousness Of Continuity

Credits:

Artist: Natalia Evelyn Bencicova / @evelyn_bencicova
Interview: Annalisa Fabbrucci / @annalisa_fabbrucci
Editor: Maria Abramenko  / @mariabramenko
Some projects in collaboration with: Enes Güç / @enesguc

You may also like

Berlin Atonal 2023

Music | Spotlight
A spotlight on the two-week Berlin Atonal 2023 this year, part of Berlin's Art Week schedule.

Gregor Hildebrandt / The immateriality of music

Art&Culture | Interview
German artists Gregor Hildebrandt talking about his relationship to music and the artworks made for the Einstürzende Neubauten records.

Between Worlds / Ithell Colquhoun

Art&Culture | Spotlight
A radical, often overlooked figure within British Surrealism, Colquhoun is finally being granted the recognition she deserves in the exhibition Ithell Colquhoun: Between Worlds, presently on display at Tate St Ives before moving to Tate Britain in June. With over 170 works on display—many never before seen—this is the most extensive retrospective of her work to date, revealing the full extent of her mystical practice and descent into the abyss of the unknown.
Bad Hair DayFalling Leaves / An ode to the unspeakable by Paul Phung