Usually, the form of speech in a virtual personal account imitates the language of human relationships. However, within the online space for paying bills, linguistic constructions from the ethical plane pass to the economic one, and expressions from the vocabulary of the personal account, such as “personalized experience”, “credit of trust”, “own balance”, lose weight and meaning, turning into abstraction.

The concept of responsibility as a response to a request for one's own human essence degrades into a responsible attitude towards timely payment for the services of comfort providers. The integrity of relationships in the personal account is replaced by the regularity of monetary contributions. These sterile relationships not only bypass the principles of human existence, but somehow cunningly suck up human sensitivity and passion for their pre-normalized unreal world. The convenience of the system is so seductive that it becomes something like the main road, displacing the indebtedness of the human personality to its own human being and common destiny to distant maniacs.

Instead of a virtual Budnikov arranges a real personal office inside a very personalized Berlin space from Inke and Hinrik Ballers, but thanks to the virtual show cancels the limited access required for the personal cabinet. It fills, or even more, fills the interiors with challenge works created in the wave of today's historical time, which crawl onto furniture, partially hang in the air, changing the architectural pattern of the rooms and conquering more places than are usually allocated for them. The canvases seem to have cast aside their frames and come close with their skin to those who are ready to be among them.

The principle of arrangement of works inside exhibition rooms balances at a transition point, where chaos begins to settle into the mood, and abstract works interact in space and with space, forming a solidarity order. Budnikov organizes an order inside his “Personal Cabinet”, where the correspondence of the elements of the newly created real space should remind of the same real responsibility.

Comparing the translations of the seemingly purely technical concepts of “Personal Account” (English) and “Mein Konto” (German) raises an ethical question about the personal account, which will have to be paid according to the request of their own conscience to those who consider themselves to belong to civilized humanity. Needless to say, delaying payment threatens the existence of civilization as such.

Vlada Ralko, 2024

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