Artists: Artem Go, Danini, Vladimir Kartashov, Kirill Makarov, Albina Mokhryakova, Anna Rotayenko, Igor Samolet, Nikita Seleznev, Sofa Skidan, Anna Tagantseva-Kobzeva.
The exhibition got its name from one of Igor Samolet’s projects, which derisively explores the habit of taking iPhone screenshots when double numbers appear on the clock by means of textile sculptures, called ‘content-forms’. By creating a new ‘content-form’ at the end of 2020, which is dedicated not only to a specific ritual of making wishes for double numbers appearing on a smartphone’s clock, but also to the dynamics of the past year, which exacerbated all the contradictions of social relations, Samolet seems to be trying to stop time itself as it is inevitably moving towards another wave of pandemics and new social and economic shocks.
The time of lockdown was not only a ‘back to reality’ period of experiencing radical loneliness and being in the privacy of one’s own mind, but also the time of manifestation of magical powers and inexplicable irrational phenomena. Conspiracy theories, new mysticism, fascination with fortune-telling, astrology, new age ideas, and algo seances (new spiritual practices brought to life by contemporary techno culture) have become new means for escapism, escape from the unsightly and sickening social reality that seems irresistible. The stream of memes that swept everyone in the spring of 2020 is becoming a kind of sublimation of quarantine restrictions and overcompensation of the pain of self-isolation, as well as the psychological and economic damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The rules of new ethics as a reaction to the bursts of domestic violence during the pandemic and the new rules of information ecology and hygiene to combat infodemia, which are reflected in the exhibition’s art projects, become a new coordinate system of a new world looming on the horizon, the laboratory for the emergence of which are the home spaces of mankind sent to self-isolation.
You can also take a walk through the exhibition “20:20. Time has stood still” online. Starting on October 19th the project's website will introduce photographs of works and accompanying media files: excerpts from videos, examples of objects from augmented reality, as well as comments from authors about their new works, biographical notes and artists' stories about their dreams during quarantine.
