The final work at the New Media Laboratory of the New Stage of Alexandrinsky Theater. Curator: Maria Danzis.
After the flight of Yuri Gagarin, people of the USSR started aspiring towards outer space. Rockets became ubiquitous in children playgrounds, and space-themed buildings were built for adults. People gradually began “getting there”. Over time, most of the inhabitants of the country left the Earth, often departing right from their tiny apartments, and never returned.
And now almost everyone in Russia is in space. There are only empty shells left of them. These shells are moving around according to the home-work-home scheme. The collective unconscious body does not need or want anything. It is this phenomenon that has opened a giant aesthetic hole in these people’s mind. The purpose of this project is to show how to get these people’s consciousness back.
The basis of the installation is a lightwell, it is a portal for the returning consciousness. The lightwell blinks more often and brighter as the returning consciousness approaches. The video tells a brief story about how, when, and where the Soviet Union was left. The culmination happens when the lightwell is completely lit up, which is a symbol of the return of the collective mind.
I came up with the idea of this project while studying Maria Danzis’s “From video art to media installation” course.
