2014, Interactive Installation, Solo Exhibition at Electromuseum gallery, Moscow
Mikhail Maximov’s solo exhibition demonstrates interactivity and 3D effects not as a mere fact but as a means to convey a meaningful message.
Mikhail Maximov is a talented artist with outstanding knowledge of contemporary artistic discourses and technologies of virtual reality and interactivity.
His virtuosic skills in 3D programming are represented in his impressive 10-meter multiscreen interactive installation Crowd Sign, as well as in a smaller but no less interesting work Tramping.
CROWD SIGN
Interactive multiscreen video installation. 2014
Crowd Sign is the artist’s contemplation of a connection between a volitional impulse and its accomplishment. It invites the spectator to try on a caftan of a demiurge and take on the responsibility to control the mob. Crowd Sign allows to control masses with a movement of a finger and then to watch the process of complying with the order.
Leaving the barracks, faceless humanoid creatures line up in figures that his master (you!) designed for them and begin to hail him by flapping hands in ecstatic loyalty.
This work examines the connections between authoritarianism and sign, symbolism and symbols of control and submission. Controlling signal is a code sign, and in Crowd Sign it represents itself, revealing the totalitarianism of the ornament. An impressive image of moving masses united by one single emotional impulse alludes to the chronicles of Nazi Germany and present-day North Korea, reminding us of a threat of totalitarianism.
In Crowd Sign faceless ant-like people never comply precisely with the order, letting the ‘demiurge’ know that his/her power can never be unlimited.
TRAMPING
One-channel video projection. 2012 – 2014
Tramping is a metaphor for the human existance within the space-time dimension refracted by author’s consciousness through the prism of Russian culture and mentality.
Tramping is an artificial vision of movement; it is a replacement of an entity gone into oblivion by another one. Tramping is an infinite process of fighting through the aggressive environment; it is both a means of existence and a mechanism of self-reproduction.
Snow is the ideal environment for Tramping. There is a lot of snow in Russia and a lot of space for Tramping.
Older generations go and the new ones come, but Tramping stays. We as we are today are tramping because this is what is written down in our biological and cultural genes, and we convey this information to our children.
Tramping is a constant search for the meaning of life, incredible effort put in the endless journey from point A to point A.
The work is created based on the aesthetics of error, or glitch, and is inspired by the imperfection of today’s 3D-technologies.
More at Electromuseum gallery website