PILproject (PIL) sets out to delve into the political value of its growing meme collection following on from the previous incarnation in 2015, hosted at the Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design. Through the acquisition process one particular meme caught the team’s attention, The Putin Rides meme, which pushed them to investigate the politics of Russia and the Internet further, and how the implementation of the countries recent Internet content law had effected artists operating on the net. Traveling to Russia and contacting several local artist groups and galleries in the Moscow area, the PIL team conducted interviews with these parties to attain a first-hand account of this new Internet legislation and its implications on the artistic practice. What will manifest for this next chapter of PILproject is an exhibition with two invited artists from Russia reacting to PIL’s meme collection. The exhibition and event surrounding it will serve to present the research findings undertaken while in Russia and will examine the effects of control and surveillance, and the dystopia of Internet freedom.
At this stage of the project we are launching a Kickstarter campaign to help fund our research publication and travel expenses to get our artists to the opening night in Dundee, Scotland. Our publication will contain the full scope of our research, and documentation from the exhibition (date of release early 2017).
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Participating artists
Ksenia Pilsova (Russia, 1990)
Ksenia Plisova is a Russian artist, born in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. She studied fashion and design in the Siberian Federal University and the Omsk State University of Service, and as well graduated from the Institute of Contemporary Art Moscow in 2013. She works with found images and utilizes this process as a tool to produce installations, collages, and objects, which criticize socio-political issues and the notion of a Post-Internet reality. She is currently based in Moscow.
Rostan Tavasiev (Russia, 1976)
Rostan Tavasiev graduated from the Institute of Contemporary Art in Moscow in 2002, and has had solo exhibitions with The Pechersky Gallery, 2015 (Moscow, Russia), CCA in Grozny, 2014 (Grozny, Russia), The National Museum RNO-Alania, 2013 (Vladikavkaz, Russia), and MAMM, 2013 (Moscow, Russia). Tavasiev has also participated in the following group exhibitions, ‘Innovation’, ZUM, 2014 (Moscow, Russia), ‘GOSZAKAZ’, Winzavod, 2013 (Moscow, Russia), and ‘Dreams for those who are awake’, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, 2013 (Moscow, Russia). He currently lives and works in Moscow.
PIL Project Team:
In terms of the team and its capabilities, all three members are professionals within the arts, and individually have worked with institutions such as the Whitechapel Gallery (London), Waterside Contemporary and Hangar.org. We have associations with local artistic communities such as Five Years (London) and NEoN Digital Arts Festival (Dundee).
Alejandro Ball (Peru, 1983)
Juan Crespo (Spain, 1987)
Enrique Tutor Torres (Spain, 1987)
All images courtesy of PIL project
CuratingtheContemporary (CtC) 