SHINING PROSTHESES, September-October
1998

Efimov Vladislav, Chernyshov Aristarkh

September 16 – October 10

In the 80s, first in the West and then in our country, exhibitions and museums filled with dissected, virtualized and therefore extremely unhappy bodies. It seems that this bacchanalia withstands an elevated balance of the Heavenly and the Earthly, which was discovered by the artists of Renaissance. However, in its harmony one can feel a stinking smell of a dissecting room, as it leans on the possibility to examine a human body in its material aspects. To get a harmonious man, it was necessary to dissect a body-monad-vessel Creator’s idea cast into. Thus, David of Michelangelo is a straight forefather of Frankenstein and Terminator.

Having developed in the 20th century, body industry laid special stress on mass production of various prostheses, from silicone bosoms and false teeth to artificial kidneys. In this situation art itself became a prosthesis of philosophy, aesthetics and ethics, that necessary and sufficient set of thought supports and crutches of European consciousness, which turned to be almost unclaimed by the end of the 20th century.

However, Aristarkh Chernyshov and Vladislav Efimov are not inclined to give simple (i.e. tragic) answers to the questions put by the time. It would be more sensible and practical to present all these shocking things as clown acts, a sort of "stories from the crypt". As in a classical horror film, in Shining Prostheses these artificial parts of the body begin living their own life and can perfectly manage without unnecessary biological additions in the form of the organs possessing genetic memory. (It is not difficult to guess that prostheses lack this kind of memory.) On the upper surface of the two monitors there are rotating keys, like in winding toys. Plastic prostheses are twitching on the screens. A human and biological aspect does not present at all in this installation, only a fleshless viewer is involved in this frightening game with artificial bodies.

However, these cheerful guys engaged in dissecting dummies, who are secretly lobbied by the firms producing artificial mankind and creating artificial intellect, have got something else in their minds. Being against all warm and awkward things, they want to make their production human. And the artists hired by corporations, perform by their order a buffoonery of prostheses – there is a box with four buttons in the other part of the installation. The box is connected with the screen by cable, and a few accountants wearing black trousers and white shirts, are dancing to the accompaniment of barbarian music. Just press the button, and crazy clerks will catch a saw and get to saw their head or leg. There is nothing to be afraid of, there is no blood, no suffering, only plastic passions.

Put by prostheses for a rainy day – this is the only thing a grandmother has got her own. There is this stupid physicality, this damned spirituality.

Andrey Kovalyov

Acknowledgement: the authors are grateful to Tatiana Detkina, Vladimir Salnikov and Nina Kotyol for their assistance in making the project.

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