NEUROTIC CITY, 2022
audio-visual experiment
Chthonian profile:
Western: ♈︎ [Virgo]
Slavic: Svarog
Chinese:虎水[Water Tiger]
The worlds of anthropology, art and, architecture are well aware of the revolutionary Situationist exercises of Guy Debord (1958), which invited the citizens to explore the terrain psycho-geographically and resist the mental economy of pre-decided urban movement as much as possible. The idea of “dérive” — letting go of the reasons for walking and being drawn by the affordances of urban terrain — is a centrepiece of the philosophy. However, dérive was designed for the first-world people, unbothered by threats of policing, crime and suspicion, living in the clean and safe first-world cities.
What would happen if we attempt to practice dérive in the cities no less big than Paris of Berlin, yet much less safe, white, and privileged? In this video art we invite you to a Situationist follow-along, a journey through urban and political fears, exercises and stories of 2 citizens of Sao Paulo and Moscow. These 2 drifts in one of the world’s most policed city and in one of the world’s most criminal city will merge into a social and urban mirror, reflecting the true progress of our societies.
Shot and performed by the Mainline Group (Lena Kilina and Sofya Chibisguleva), sound design by Yuri Bruscky.
What would happen if we attempt to practice dérive in the cities no less big than Paris of Berlin, yet much less safe, white, and privileged? In this video art we invite you to a Situationist follow-along, a journey through urban and political fears, exercises and stories of 2 citizens of Sao Paulo and Moscow. These 2 drifts in one of the world’s most policed city and in one of the world’s most criminal city will merge into a social and urban mirror, reflecting the true progress of our societies.
Shot and performed by the Mainline Group (Lena Kilina and Sofya Chibisguleva), sound design by Yuri Bruscky.