без названия / bez nazvaniya - A Russian essai in 5 topics - 2011

Cyland Media Art Lab at Kronshtadt, Russia
Artists in residence program
NCCA Moscow St Petersburg branch
Государственный центр современного искусства
Санкт_Петербургский филиал
Резиденция Для Художников
Кронштадте
[www.cyland.ru ...]

без названия / bez nazvaniya

KRONSHTADT December 2010

Bez nazvaniya is one of the two videos I made during my residency at the CYLAND Media Lab of the NCCA Saint Petersburg branch at Kronstadt in Russia. This work takes its place in the lineage of the “Untitled” series of “The Soup” project. Its intention is to attack our own society stereotypes. Bez nazvaniya means untitled in Russian. How can one approach an unfamiliar nation, when neither speaking nor reading the language, astray by fallacious representations acquired through one’s education, history courses on Napoleon’s Russian campaign, James bond movies, stories from one’s grandfather of the Saint Petersburg besieged heroic resistance, the cold war, the TV news and the Red Army Choir record from one’s mother. The easiest way is to go into exile, during the winter, away on a small island, in an old garrison town covered with snow and seemingly frozen in time since the 19th century, by minus 23°C outside and plus 25°C inside. There, when facing yourself and the Cyrillic characters on the food packaging of the small nearby supermarket you desperately try to decode to, eventually, find out what you will be eating, you understand that the only solution is …to get by, make do and put up with it. This is « the Russian Soul ». At least, that is what I believe. Thus, I decided to let the Russian winter fall over me and the snow cover me. I entered a latency state or more precisely a waiting state, waiting for it to “end”. I cloaked myself behind my coat’s hood, lined with fake fur and I observed the smallest detail, the slightest movement behind every single snowflake - and there was a lot of snow, trucks of it! They were going untiringly, back and forth, between the town and the countryside, taking the snow away from the pavements and the hesitant shoe soles of the little old ladies, waddling along, taking teeny tiny footsteps, wrapped in old fur coats, holding an IKEA plastic bag in their hand. I always wondered why Russian people, most of the time, keep a stiff and emotionless face… go outside by minus 23C° for few hours, and then try to smile! Bez nazvaniya is a condensed summary of Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky, Eisenstein, Gagarin, Kasparov and the Red Army Choir. Actually, one day, try a little experiment. In winter, take a seat in a bus, in the depth of the Russian countryside, by a night cold enough for the windows to frizz so you cannot see outside. After few minutes, I can assure you, you will hear inside your head the music Polyushka Polye (Field O my field) of the Red Army Choir. If you do not hear anything, well, remove your Mp3 player and wait a bit, it will come. A stereotype is just like a song stuck in your head that you cannot get rid of.

So … Dosvidaniya
Specimen n°1