Luke Ryan
I am a photographic artist from Dublin, Ireland and began work on this project in 2021, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in Spring 2022. My work addresses a number of contemporary issues such as surveillance, artificial intelligence, consumerism and modern technologies. My concern is how the appropriation of digital images from public sources such as webcams, 'synthetic' portraits or online databases reveals the hidden, underlying networks in society.
I collect images in abundance, shaping and moulding them into bodies of work a method used for my books State of Security (2020), T.H.E.M.: The Heuristic Electric Machine (2020-2021) and Chief Designer (2021-2021). Drawing from online archives, I equally experiment with photographic printing processes in order to enhance the tactile nature of the images and challenge the boundaries between the material and the immaterial.
Chief Designer
I began work on this project in 2021, before the February 24th invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation. This exhibition and artist’s book traces the unlikely rise of Sergey Pavlovich Korolyov, a scientist and former prisoner of Kolyma Labour Camp who became head of the Soviet space programme. Chief Designer (2021-2022) explores Space Race era archives including National Security Agency (NSA), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) documents and secret Soviet photographs of their Chief Designer.
This exhibition and artist’s book traces the unlikely rise of Korolyov, who oversaw the design, construction, and deployment of Soviet rockets, including the R-7 Semyorka, the world’s first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). Designed to deliver a payload of up to 5 metric ton, the weight of a Soviet thermonuclear warhead, the R-7 was used to inaugurate the space race with the launch of Sputnik-1.
Korolyov, a dedicated researcher and astronautic engineer who is considered a pioneer of space travel whose research and life’s work was corrupted by leaders of the Soviet Union to create weapons of mass destruction. His true passion was space flight, which was only funded due to its success as propaganda. His complicated legacy as the Chief Designer of both long-range ballistic missiles with thermonuclear capabilities and the birth of space flight will forever loom over humanity.
Photobook
This artist’s book traces the unlikely rise of Sergey Pavlovich Korolyov, a scientist and former prisoner of Kolyma Labour Camp who became head of the Soviet space programme.