Tuesday, February 28, 2012

More and more funny political art

BUT WHAT IF PUTIN DOESN'T WIN???

"Unexpected Outcome Of President Elections"
Nikita Shokhov, Unexpected outcome of President Elections, 2012, picture is taken from www.openspace.ru
 Closer to President elections-more political art all over Russian internet. It is as healthy as teenage hard-ons, and 
it's such an exciting thing to see Russian creative crowd turning healthy. 
Nikita Shokhov is one of the lucky students of The Rodchenko Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia (www.mdfschool.ru).

Today www.Openspace.ru ( my absolutely favorite Russian Internet Portal)published some pictures from his new project. Not too conceptual, but really tasty, as a nice hot sandwich given to you by a stranger at the demonstration in -20.


More pics: http://www.openspace.ru/photogallery/34702/330837/ 

And also wanted to give a link to a fantastic photosession of Nikita made on the beaches of the most corrupted resort-lovely Sotchi: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.182265308506485.46042.100001690510481&type=3  ( I hope it opens fine)

Saturday, December 24, 2011

ANOTHER BIG RALLY TOMORROW

It has become quite cool to attend a demonstration. Magazines are successfully speculating on the fact.
9th December before the huge demonstration on Bolotnaya sq. when people still didn't know what to expect from police and OMON and everyone was quite nervous, news fields were full of warnings: what to do if you get arrested...how to talk to police....how to recognize provocators...how to fight for your rights....how to behave during the trial.... etc etc 


Now people seem to be a bit more relaxed. 






the Most important topics:

1. What to wear for the rally?
2. where to get drunk with friends afterwards?
3. "Meeting" (rally) or Petting?
4. Top five no visa countries to run away  to 
5. Where to buy roses for police?
6.Opposition, Demonstration other "ions"
7. Ten demonstrations that changed the history
etc etc etc

But the most amazing one is:

                                       
: 70% of demonstrators on Bolotnaya Sq were men, more than 65% of which were younger than 35, more than 80% of which have an income above the average and around 75% - IQ above the average ...and half of them are not married! thousands of cool single men! so we strongly recommend you to attend the demonstration on December 24th. An Opportunity like this comes only once in 20 years!

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

R E V O L U T I O N ?

Never enjoyed being in Moscow as much as I do now. 


Never used to read newspapers. Never really liked to discuss politics. Never thought I would ever be interested. Never voted in my entire life and never attended a single demonstration.
December the 5th 2011, 8 pm, I found myself chanting
"Russia without Putin! Russia without Putin!" surrounded by a good five thousands of beautiful, interesting, mainly young men and women. People you would never see protesting on the streets before. People of creative professions, many of whom travelled the world, studied or lived abroad and now trying to lead interesting exciting lifes in Russia, despite corruption they hate, governement they ignore and old-fashioned patterns they refuse to follow. People who did their very best trying not to be involved in dirty games of politics.They were all on the streets that night.
Why? Things are changing. Moscow is burning.
But since the first wave of euphoria rushed back, a big number of questions arose, the most important of which are : What The F... is going on? And what the F... should we do now?
Before I try to answer these questions let me tell you the story of my own political awakening.

1. End of May 2011.London. Chelsea College of Art and Design.         Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art.
Elections of Curatorial Committee for our Final Show. 
We were just choosing 4-5 people who were supposed to make sure everyone gets a piece of the wall/floor he wants/deserves/etc.
The voting itself took 2 hours. The heated discussion via group email - a good 3 days. 
The phone was beeping non stop, messages arrived and arrived, I was amazed,impressed and amused at the same time.

"Is contradictory for me to say we are electing on merit (?) and we are all suppose to be equal BUT you don't feel that anyone can represent your interests as good as a [fill with your nationality, sex, ethnic background, religion and so on] would do. We are not from different parties. I thought we ALL had the same interest here: making an outstanding show"

"By the way, have you ever wondered who would be able to represent someone like me if I would think the same way you do???"

"I feel very strongly that we should either have a committee that is 
EITHER 
representative of the diverse nature of the group 
OR 
based on a meritocracy :- in that the individuals who the group who the group feels would be best at this role."

"I am not sexist, nor xenophobic; I just want a fair election system.

At present, we seem to have a committee that is neither representative, or meritocratic - so to me the voting & counting system seems deeply flawed and totally undemocratic."

"The voting system was flawed and the largest category, the home females, aren't represented. This seems strange if what we were attempting to do (by categorising the votes) is have a committee that's representative of all those on the course." 

"Hope you people feel more comfortable as well as confident that the preparation of the show will run smoothly now a female Home student has been added."

"Ironically, it was the first time during the course I felt discriminated

 ANY thoughts on the fact you're grouping everybody who isn't British in an "overseas basket" as if that would imply homogeneity?


This last false assumption underlies the concept of the "Other" and it's a form of racism obviously inherited from colonial times."


"for the record I think a meritocratic vote is now preferable judging by the difficulties we've had with proportional voting so far." 

 "I think it's probably reasonable to assume that whatever the result, somebody wouldn't be happy about it. That's the problem with democracy, it's a compromise, but at least it's relatively fair."

The only thing I could add was:

"I wish the elections of  Russian president were the same democratic. You guys should give voting masterclasses in Russia." 
 



              to be continued...........................