2007-2017 THE LAST JUDGEMENT

Ludmila Belova
The Last Judgement
Digital photography, photo-paper printing, 2009–2017

In the modern world, we constantly doubt the authenticity of images and information, which follow people everywhere, from the TV news to the Internet. Banks, businesses and government structures increasingly resort to the last method to identify human beings — their biometrics.
With the advent of the digital era, the obligatory set of identification documents were supplemented by the traces of virtual presence: everyone will sooner or later be “counted” and provided with a personal ID. But if in the real world the passport is destroyed after death, nothing ever disappears from the digital one, as we know, and an avatar can live forever unless friends or relatives delete it.
“The Last Argument” examines the topic of the evidence which people could provide to authenticate their existence, when the last thing they have left is their biometrics, their DNA. 
Photographs of the faces of people who may be alive or dead, evoking associations with death, are actually taken at a perfectly pleasant and very human place — a beauty parlor. Images of beauty masks that combine elements of both the living and the lifeless are a unique illustration of a hybrid world, where an existence is possible in which the beauty of portraits will probably be judged by other aesthetic norms — if such norms exist at all.

EXHIBITION