Photo: Anton Khlabov
Marina Alexeeva and Vladimir Rannev «THE WHOLE SHEBANG», audiovisual installation
February 6 — March 10 2021
St. Petersburg, emb. of the Fontanka River, 121
Curator: Dmitry Renansky.
The Project is technically supported by CYLAND MediaArtLab.
«The flesh of the installation is formed by a technique that visually creates the impression of mad technogenic bustle, the “demonic life”. The audio is an ecstatic “symphony of comfort”. Before us is an army battered by struggles with consumer greed.»
Vladimir Rannev
Marina Alekseeva has always been interested in the social structures of contemporary society, which the artist has explored through the prism of the physical and material environment of human habitation. A new joint project with Vladimir Rannev reflects back on a series of Alekseeva’s lightboxes from the 2000s that recreated miniature versions of the interiors of various religious buildings, from a cathedral to a mosque and an Orthodox church. The subject under examination in the total installation “The Whole Shebang” is the main temple of the modern human — their home, filled to the brim with devices and gadgets.
At first glance, it may seem that the content of Marina Alekseeva and Vladimir Rannev’s project is limited to environmental issues, which are an important focus of the contemporary art scene. As you first approach it, “All Inclusive” really does look like a call to consider the consequences of household waste, an anti-manifesto against overproduction and consumerist society. Technology, designed to facilitate and improve everyday life, has taken on such a large role that it is gradually displacing humans, excluding us as irrelevant and turning into a closed, autonomous ecosystem.At the beginning of the XXI century, we are predicting the imminent rise of the machines, without realizing that in fact it has already happened long ago.
The «The Whole Shebang» project was conceived a little more than a year ago, in a completely different reality, as they say. It was the year 2020 and the time of lockdown, when humanity was actually locked in at home, and space and time collapsed into the experience of domestic life. It filled the work of Marina Alekseeva and Vladimir Rannev with new overtones that made it existential and even tragic.
On February 5 at 16:00 at the Masters School, a discussion will take place, during which curator Dmitry Renansky will talk about the exhibition, Marina Alekseeva and Vladimir Rannev — about their work, Marina Gisich — about the concept of the new Project site and about cooperation with collectors. Registration and a detailed description of the event here.