INTERVIEW Jennifer Kolb
PUBLISHED 5. MRZ 2025
Sasha Kojjio lives in Barcelona. In 2020, he presented a large-scale 3D mapping project at PIXEL FEST in Yekaterinburg (RU). Since 2022, his installations have been regularly featured at the INTERVALS Festival in Nizhny Novgorod (RU). In 2023, he was invited to the MIRA Media Art Festival in Barcelona.
// Where did the idea for “semantic failure” originate? Was it conceptualized in response to a specific experience or observation?
I was inspired to create this project during my journey through South Asia – each new country I visited had its own language, and I noticed the ability of mind to feel something behind visual representation and unfamiliar glyphs, and to create a meaning associated with this feeling and to find correlations between glyphs and meanings.
// What was the idea behind “semantic failure” and how did you go about it?
“Semantic failure” originated from the idea that we don’t need to know the meaning behind the symbol, letter or word to grasp and feel the sense behind it. And how by showing the same sets of glyphs (a.k.a words, sentences) in different context and with different visual representation can create new meanings and interpretations of it. The work explores how the visual representation of text often speaks more than text itself.
// How did the work develop? Was the text entirely scripted beforehand, or did you generate it dynamically during the creative process?
The artwork develops from one exhibition to another. I enjoy working with letters and texts, and I am passionate about the concept of the installation, that’s why it is constantly developing, affected by my personal experience and events in my life. I change the text, tend to add new elements, cut whatever does not longer resonate with me, leave something as it is and refine what needs it. It makes each exhibition more personal and unique.
// Generative art often relies on randomness or algorithms. How much of “semantic failure” is controlled, and how much is left to chance?
I perceive randomness and the generative algorithms as tools that I use to create the statement and the experience for the viewer. I emphasize animal impact: movement, rhythm, sudden mistakes. I try to express myself not through use of generative algorithms but rather through a manipulation of those. In the end it is a rendered video that will be played on the facade, and the viewer should not care whether I did use generative real-time algorithms or did not.
// What software do you work with? What qualities are important to you here?
To create this artwork I have paired Touchdesigner and Ableton. The first being a visual engine that comprises all visual algorithms and the second being a sound engine and a control unit for the first. I like to divide my workflow between these softwares because in Touchdesigner is a core of programming and I use my coder-mind when I work in it, while Ableton interface invites human interaction and its toolset allows me to express and capture feelings.
// How did you create the soundscape, and what role does sound play in the video artwork?
Sound creates context for my work and emphasizes the visual. When I create sound I try to feel how that exact visual would sound like and what impact it would leave on a viewer.
// What does “exhibiting” mean to you? What role does it play for your work to find a place in the public eye?
I believe that new media art does not exist without a viewer. This medium is about experience and interpretation, and there are always two parts: a transceiver and a receiver, the link does not exist without any of these parts. Thus the exhibition of the artwork is a necessity for it to exist. I also like to explore how audiences from different cultures, countries, contexts perceive my work, how it affects them, how they interpret it and what they find. I always find something new about my artwork from the interaction of viewers with it.
// And finally, a more philosophical question: How do you see the relationship between art and society?
I think that art invites novelty into people’s lives. Art normalizes new ideas, shapes, perspectives, approaches, techniques and technologies. Art is like a scope through which people look at their lives.