VLADIMIR RANNEV

«All wars start with people being prepared to fight, and by making them prepared with militarist slogans, hate propaganda and manipulation of their insecurities and fears. This means that wars do not start with gunshots, but with words. The audio-visual installation “We can do it again” is our reaction to the rhetoric of hostility that is prevalent in the Russian media space, and which we find utterly abhorrent.» — V. Rannev, M. Alexeeva

The site-specific project in the basement of Annenkirche is about how important it is to encounter something new — notably, it is not so important what exactly as long as it is new.

«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

Various characters from Soviet media reality who were long associated with the past have recently become the new face of modern Russia, in the wave of nostalgia for the Soviet era. By optical illusion, Alekseeva and Rannev put these resurrected dinosaurs in a chocolate fountain, in a “sweet life”. But even here they continue to sing the Soviet national anthem.