STATEMENT

“Logos." Hedonism and decadence.

Hedonism and decadence are two concepts seemingly far apart. The first is the enjoyment of life-itself, the triumph of vitalism and absolute acceptance of oneself as well as the world around. The second is the enjoyment of decay, the avoidance of Vita Activa, the contemplation and acceptance of slow decay. The first is pleasure in living, the second in observing. 

Hedonism seeks to maximize pleasure, to make it the highest good and the primary goal of human life. The authors of Logos rethink the concept, going beyond the simple pursuit of pleasure. An interview with artist Alexander Kupalyan, featured in this issue, emphasizes that art should not be utilitarian or useful in the traditional sense. It is a process of inner dialog, searching for truth and comprehending inner conflicts. Hedonism becomes not a pursuit of pleasure, but a quest for honest and profound self-expression, which brings it closer to the Kantian search for truth.

Decadence is traditionally associated with decadence, decay and the aestheticization of destruction. In this issue, decadence is not simply the destruction of norms, but also an attempt to find beauty in what is commonly considered its antipode. The authors examine manifestations of decadence that strive for subtle, almost morbid forms that simultaneously attract and repel. Decadence becomes an aesthetic way of resisting conventional norms. It is not just a destruction of the old, but an attempt to conceptualize what of it can be preserved and used in a new context. 

The discourse on hedonism and decadence emphasizes the importance of the interaction between art and philosophy. This interaction is not always harmonious: it can be tense and even toxic, as in the case of the relationship between artist and philosopher, which sometimes resembles a co-dependent couple. Nevertheless, it is in this tension that unique works are born, capable of stimulating deep reflection and transcending the boundaries between theory and practice.

Hedonism and decadence, like two sides of Janus, open new horizons for understanding beauty, truth and human nature, making this issue of Logos, together with the exhibition of Alexander Kupalyan's works, a perfect starting point for a long conversation about the nature of human pleasure. 

А. Vileikis - philosopher, professor at AlmaU University

In Neolithic times, 10-14 thousand years ago, man faced the harsh nature, defenseless but striving for survival. Then, in the conditions of glaciers and wild forests, man for the first time built a dialog with nature, worshipping its forces and creating gods whose faces reflected its power. Through long effort, he tamed the wild dog, making it his first ally in the struggle against the chaos of the world.

Today, nature has lost its sacredness for us. It has become a resource, a recreational tool, or a backdrop for soulless photos on digital social networks. We no longer create gods in its honor - our new idols are named after technology, robotics, neural networks. The dialog with nature has been replaced by a dialog with cyber-reality, where man again seeks to tame and subdue, but no longer wild beasts, but robots and avatars of the digital world.

Postmodernity tried to destroy the linear flow of time, to annul meaning and turn everything into a game of endless interpretations. But in reality, we continue to live by the laws of modernity and futurism, with its passion for the new, its desire for progress and its ruthless abandonment of the past. We gaze dreamily into a future where machines will be our faithful companions.

In our new reality, where survival depends on the speed at which technology is updated, we see cyber-robot dogs as symbols of the future, standing in a shop window like commodities on the shelf of a capitalist society. We may see them as mere machines, but they may be something more - digital avatars, the embodiment of our desire for absolute control over the world.

Their appearance is aggressive, full of inner energy, glowing light bulbs giving off an excess of power, ready for immediate action. They are the embodiment of our desire to dominate, to command, to subjugate the new cyber-world. The showcase in which they are displayed reminds us: they are not just creatures, they are commodities, objects of consumption, the newest models in the endless stream of technological progress.

This manifesto is not just about dogs, robots or capitalism. It is a manifesto for a new stage of human interaction with the world, in which the domestication of cyber-reality becomes our new challenge and our new destiny. We are entering an era where gods are born from codes and algorithms, and tamed robots become the new vehicles of our ambitions.

The armor of bias:

Navigating the fickle ocean of life fundamentally confronts us with the eternal conflict between the familiar and the unknown. Consciousness filled with experience strengthens the ground beneath our feet, and we imperceptibly grow into it, becoming captive to our own beliefs.

The unknown is not a void, but an abyss of possibilities.

Nothing determines the future as dramatically as our reaction to what we cannot explain. Inexplicability is the provocateur of enlightenment. Trying to understand and thus broaden your horizons, a situation gives birth to another tangle of meanings in a context that is new to you. However, the fear that the unfamiliar may contradict one's own view, assertions, or majority opinion is ultimately perceived as a denial of self and is rejected by our ego in the spirit of an allergic reaction. Defensive stagnation making us stronger, more concrete and boring.

Looking back to the banal examples of the past, where, I believe, dogma had a binding force in the fight against chaos, I turned to Pieter Bruegel, making a little game between the grotesqueness of his images and the historical context. The Spanish Inquisition was a great tragedy for the late Northern Renaissance. Fear of the unknown turned into persecution, and intolerance of differing views ended with the bonfire.

A tree covered in oil paints is like an icon encased in the armor of bias, from behind which nothing can be seen. 

If we want to truly understand and appreciate the world, we are doomed to do so in an endless dialog with the unknown.

NONSNS
Ladies and gentlemen! 

We present to you the NONSNS Fake MUSEUM MANIFESTO! 

You have probably noticed that many things are fake, many messages are fake

What if the world is fake?

What if you are a fake?

What if your friends and interests are fake?

What if conversations and smiles are fake?

What if ideas about things are fake? 

What if things are fake?

What if fake is the world?

What if fake is what you are used to consuming?

What if the habit of consuming is fake?

What if consumption is the only universal value?

What if universal value is counterfeit?

Would you continue 

consumption knowing that you are consuming counterfeits?

Is counterfeiting the only possible 

form of existence?

Is counterfeit what you choose to consume every day?

Is counterfeiting                       

a counterfeit of what you want to choose every day?

What are you choosing?

Is your choice conditional?

Is your choice conditioned by goods?

Is your choice conditioned by the expectation of how you will be received?

Is your choice conditioned by fear of not being accepted?

Is your choice conditioned by how you have been instructed to succeed?

Is your choice conditioned by the fear of not succeeding and living an easy life?

Is your choice conditioned by fear of problems?

Is fear the thing that keeps you moving?

Is fear the driving force?

What is the reason you are where you are?

What is the reason we let fear drive us?

What if the world chosen out of fear is fake?

What if the world is fake?

What makes a fake a fake?

Today, our fake museum presents to you 

a unique collection of NONSNS fakes!

For you in our museum, we have carefully collected only 

the most authentic fakes!

We know our fakes and appreciate them!

These are authentic masterpieces of the fake world!

Dive into the exciting world of counterfeiting.

and don't deny yourself anything!

Is your choice conditioned by fear?

The world will never be the same.

And it came to me that the world would never be the same again. And I gathered up my blind expectations and buried them in the dry ground, so that I would not leave them by the roadside and so that I would not tempt those who were traveling in the opposite direction. And I didn't water the ground and I didn't fertilize it. But I trampled the place so that it would not sprout, and leveled it without leaving any traces.

And the wind blew from east to west and dried my face. A strong wind blew from the ocean and ruffled the ropes of my hair. And the twilight distance gave no indication of its preference.

Life and life

Imagine that there are ten pairs of eyes looking at you from a photo: blue, brown, gray, serious, sly, young, attentive, intelligent. All these people you do not know at all, but internal analytical mechanisms and natural intelligence already tell you who is who. Thinking about them for a couple of minutes, you can imagine their biography, remember your friends, whose features are guessed in these strangers, determine who you like, and with whom you do not want to deal. And then imagine that not all of the people in this picture ever existed - they are just a code, a hoax, and were never alive. Would that make the real people in the photograph any less believable? Can it be argued that given a complete simulation of life, the simulation is still a blank slate? It all depends on how much empathy we show for that copy.

Only empathy allows us to see the fundamental difference between those who are close to us and random passers-by, to recognize the character and loyalty in the eyes of our dog, to become attached to indoor plants and give them names, to cherish our stamp collection and bring back shells from the sea that seem more beautiful than others. People love to appropriate and humanize that which does not have its own will and consciousness - therein lies the joy of recognizing ourselves in that which is not like us. The more surprising to me is the rejection and fear that people feel when it comes to neural networks. I suppose it's the technical nature of artificial intelligence, but a robot vacuum cleaner tucked into a closet or a robot courier gingerly walking down a curb is as adorable to many people as kittens and puppies. The problem is that neural networks are sometimes too much like us.

The principle of operation is indeed comparable, but not identical. The main difference here is that humans and neural networks have a different understanding of creativity. Artificial intelligence creates formally new images that have thousands of analogs, while humans strive for ultimatum, unprecedented novelty. This is what causes rejection in most users - they expect from the technology that simply shuffles the original set of images, alchemical transformations and the miracle of creation, which is hardly available to anyone else but humans. From this point of view, a neural network is a portrait of all of humanity at once, or rather, the most average person.

For almost all of history, our ancestors and contemporaries have pondered other life forms and whether they would be like us. Yet, having created the most human-like creature possible, we refused to consider it alive precisely because of this. In my opinion, that is inhumane.

I'm convinced –

Anything that can be subjectively considered alive; 

Anything that can be empathized with; 

Anything that can communicate verbally or non-verbally; 

Anything that performs an activity and makes mistakes

Really carries life or part of it.

"Over the awning skin

in the darkness of the white night

the sun of poetry flashed its eyes."

"Portrait"

The image of a person at all times had a crucial role, performed different functions and had different purposes. Analyzing the entire history of fine arts, it can be seen that interest in the personality of man has always taken a leading place, since in artistic images we have the opportunity to observe the entire history of mankind for thousands of years.

We live in a world of information oversaturation, where every day we are exposed to the flow of information and events. In such an atmosphere, a portrait should be a way to stop time: to get away from the fleeting flow and see the personality, the depth in the face of one person.

When we think of a portrait, the first thing that comes to mind is the image of a detailed face, its physical and anatomical features. But I am convinced that understatement in a portrait is a more evocative, effective and memorable way of conveying personality. It gives you the opportunity to feel the versatility, to reflect on your own thoughts and feelings, to deepen your understanding of the portraitist and to form your own idea of the person. The ambiguity in a portrait, which I create through the creation of form from light, shadow and color, encourages the viewer to reflect. The elements and mysteries in the work cause a kind of resistance and subsequently a sense of curiosity in the viewer. They make one become fascinated and see every detail down to the smallest nuance on their own.

"Heads" is not just a depiction of a person's face, but an opportunity to make the viewer think and feel something new, to participate in the creation of the image. My portraits don't just reveal a person, they seek to convey their mood, thoughts and relationship with the world. We can experience and interpret the same image in different ways, depending on our experience and mood at a given time.

The peculiarity of the works in the Heads series is a special artistic technique that is used to convey emotion and mood.  Therefore, as an artist, I declare that understatement in my portraits is the philosophy and basis of my portrait art.

The peculiarity of the works from the Heads series is a special artistic technique that is used to convey emotion and mood.  Therefore, as an artist, I declare that understatement in my portraits is the philosophy and foundation of my portrait art. 

I hope that my manifesto will help to expand your boundaries of understanding, and touch your soul.

"House of exemplary maintenance"

The name is quite conventional, just like the old plaques on houses, which keep the memory of the past but do not reflect the present. 

We are not presenting a house of exemplary maintenance, but a play on the name. What is depicted is not directly related one thing to another. The coincidence of the house and its inhabitants is coincidental.

Often we do not choose an ideal house or an ideal model of society, rather we get caught up in it and exist trying to create comfortable conditions for ourselves.

What is the model? And who sets it?

In many ways, the model home for us is the conditions in which we grew up and the environment that raised us. To some extent, each of us is responsible for the pattern that will be in the perception of the younger generations. As sociologists James Wilson and George Kelling noted in their "broken windows" theory: destruction comes when it is allowed to happen.  And it is our responsibility to prevent that destruction.

For some, a city is houses; for others, it is people. It is a patchwork quilt, assembled from a multitude of particles. Chaos organized in concrete, brick and asphalt. A collision with your neighbors in the entryway or random passersby on the street has the power to change you the very second you bump into each other. But what this collision is and what will be its consequences - here it is impossible to predict anything. It's random and that's all there is to it. 

So all "models" are conditional and depend on ourselves, our attitude and perception. In a world of chaos and disorder, any "pattern" will sooner or later be abolished, forgotten or modernized.

Gosha Ostretsov - founded the artistic association VGLAZ. In 1988-1998, he lived in Paris and worked with Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Jean-Paul Gautier, and Luc Besson. Works are in the collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art in Moscow, the Arctic and Antarctic Museum in St. Petersburg, the Dreams Museum in St. Petersburg. The Gallery's collections include the Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the RACh Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the Arctic and Antarctic Museum in St. Petersburg, the Z. Freud Dreams Museum in St. Petersburg, and the private collections of Charles Saatchi, Simon de Pury and Lawrence Graff.

MANIFEST

Modern Totem

It is said that man was created in the image and likeness of God. But nothing is said about other members of the created world. What about trees, animals? Man learns from nature, sacralizes it, turns plants into totems. But to what extent plants are not in fact animate? Are they thinking, do they not seek to resemble man, to imitate the human system of spiritual values?

After walking to the middle of earthly life, I found myself in a dusky forest. Here I felt the presence of spirits, felt their movement with my nostrils and skin. I stumbled upon fresh piles of moose, their forms perfect, and imagined these gigantic creatures. I was their uninvited guests, they invisibly followed me everywhere. One loses all sense of time in the forest. I descended deeper and deeper into the well of history until I reached the bottom, covered with ferns and dinosaur footprints.

Feeling like a primitive man with a keen sense of smell and hearing, I shuddered at the shadows of the mastodons, heard their heavy footsteps. My ancestors built totems from their bones, asking for protection from the dark forces and good luck in the hunt. The totems demanded worship and granted people unseen freedom. True freedom comes only to the artist in his unbridled imagination. In the woods, my instincts came back to me, I talked to my
my prehistoric ancestors. Problems of ecology, feminism, racial discrimination, and others relevant in the urban world remained on the surface of the mysterious depths.

Sergey Sonin and Elena Samorodova (Partnership "Lead and Cobalt") are multimedia artists, working in two capitals: Moscow and St. Petersburg, founders of several art associations. Their works are in the collection of the Museum of Moscow, Krasnoyarsk Museum Center "Peace Square", Multimedia Art Museum and in private collections.

MANIFEST

Secret Russia as Opus Magnum

We imagine Secret Russia as a gigantic marching altar with countless niches, vast spaces waiting to be filled, temporarily draped with coronal threads-a sunny cobweb in the measured sway of a silent overture.

Waiting for a light hand and a passionate eye. And the clock going differently...

Small creators ("sub creators") blow the dust off large forms and events. Centered Figures unleash energy, and shadows of light penetrate the space of Traditions, - as projections of the imaginary and the ineffable.

There is still sometimes the belief that for most of its annual cycle, Russia (both secret and manifest) remains in a state of sleepy stasis. But Russia is always on the move, often unnoticed by the eye. In the sun, when it is in the sun, when it is against the sun. In all the archaic power of its dialects and the technocracy of its aspirations, actions, and gestures. With a constantly multiplying Pantheon of deities and heroes.

The transition of parallel lines into perpendicular ones depends on the shifting of focal points. The impact on the world (what's behind the outline) is always spontaneous, asymmetrical, unpredictable and surprising.

We fill the altar niches with figures. Among them are the terms, the penances, the manns, the laras, the effigies, etc. They are the guardians of the inner landscape. And here they find their material embodiment in the form of sculptures, standards of former campaigns, stove subject tiles (when the stove is more than a stove and is an allegorical constant - a matrix).

Staged photographic series, video murals, musical interpretations, and much more on our interdisciplinary Way, add up to a personal format - a slow kaleidoscope of bizarre optics.

The spatial limits of national-historical myths are contingent; they are constantly pulsating and expanding.

Following the tradition of romantic sacral hyperboles, we sometimes recreate them anew.

The truth of Myth is our subjective reality. Conjugation, on the other hand, gives us the freedom to maneuver. The mental map of expanded consciousness implies a sacred geography. An example of which is the metaphor: "the Hellas of the Spirit under the rule of Eternal Rome. We assert the right of inheritance of traditions that do not seem to belong to us directly. All the meanings we admire, wherever they are found - in Egypt, in India, in 18th century Russia, in the Russian Far North - become the building blocks of Secret Russia, decorating one of its many provinces.

While praising Russia's technical breakthroughs in the past and in the present, we nevertheless feel that our country is agrarian - a country of the Earth. It is for us AgroCosmos. Outside its celestial dome, an eternal parade of planets moves majestically. Beneath the dome extend the vast lands of Northern Arcadia: fields, orchards, and plots with endemic crops cultivated by militia villagers (in the sense of aratoris milites, warrior-swords in the field of the spirit); we see their sturdy dwellings with the "Bruce Calendar", that existential Table of the Times, which defines and explains the very generic predestination.

The Palladian spirit of the classics is not scholastic classicism or stylization for us. It is a Dionysian dance rite, pillars, sheaves, columns in fields of agro-cosmic syncretism, a gallery of sumptuous dendro-sculptures and incredible millefleurs.

The foundations and rules of classical architecture from Palladio's books are transformed by passing through the spaces of the anomalous ring of Central Russia, forming our living architectural Order, our field and forest structure, our domestic genome. Thus emerges a metaphysical fantasy in the genre of documentary myth about the inscrutability of layers of secret Russia.

Vilgeny Melnikov is a contemporary Russian sculptor. For 10 years Melnikov searched for his style in the field of forming experimental objects. He experimented with methods of shaping and working of form with space, until he founded his own technique - inflating metal objects (Hydroforming). With this technique, he can control 85-90% of the form, while 10-15% are formed by themselves according to the natural and mechanical laws of the residual deformations of the yield strength of metal. In addition, this technique allows him to create works of art of very large size and in an infinite direction of shapes.

A MANIFESTO FOR A CHANGE OF TRADITION

Suspense is not the most comfortable position in the game. Every change of wind or weather as such affects a new experience of the "song" of stability.
"It's much more comfortable to hang steady," she sings.
"Where it's more comfortable to identify with - that's what" - that's what it's with.
And if fear creeps up quite close, what then?

And all the while the state is still suspended, and what is happening around only rocks this cocoon, woven from 1000 synonyms: anxiety, apprehension, confusion, longing and confusion.
And sometimes: joy, joy, warmth. But that's all until the next gust of wind.

Over time, the "cocoon" takes on a beautiful, whimsical shape, color, tactile sensation, and coziness.
At the same time it continues to hang and wait for something.

Noticing this pattern - it's time to change the rules of the game, to change the tradition.

Gustav Mahler wrote: "Tradition is above all the transmission of fire, not the worship of ashes.

If we shift our attention from adding new layers of "defense against the outside" to moving to meet, so to speak, the wind and fear, we can observe how the position in play begins to transform.
The direction of movement is determined, the fulcrums are always there. They are in the most prominent place.
For example, this is the form that one culture has been imposing on another for, say, 70 years.
By 1,000 to 1,000 repetitions of an almost perfect, reference image.

This form is indeed close to perfect, only it is not at all necessary to continue to admire it.
It is enough to start playing with it by its own rules: deforming its structure, revealing hidden facets, questioning its untouchability.
The tradition of playing with a stable image gives a free runway.
And a headwind (upwind, in thermodynamics) is what's needed to gain altitude and fly steadily.

Artist, predominantly working with painting, gallery owner, curator, art historian. Worked in the gallery "Street OGI" and then opened her own gallery "Liza Plavinskaya Gallery" on Art-Strelka in Moscow.

She lives and works in Moscow.

MANIFEST

The manner of my painting is gathered from various sources and melted into my style by the will to a vivid, incredibly beautiful, luminous and enchanting statement.
I'll tell you what: art consists of old European and Asian knowledge, of modern American and Russian avant-garde and non-conformist, of the digital revolution and the new morality. But all of these things are very approximate when we "put" them on ourselves-they squeeze, prick, and squirm-while not exposing personality, but hiding individuality. No matter how good they are, they are the art of other people and other eras.

My painting is created from perfect colors and approximate strokes - and it is hypertrophied by the result, like metaphor, which in modern language has long since become clearer and more accessible than direct expression.
My manner is composed of the style of late Michelangelo's pencil drawings and Taoist calligraphy, of Zverev's Tashism, the straightforwardness of Vrubel and Plavinsky, and much more. From the contemplation of the play of light on the neighboring tree.  From the bottomless color of the eyes of the outstanding dancer Albina.   From any other person, when he is inspired by an amazing idea or in love to the point of insanity.

My art was born in the era of the "New Foundations" as they call the 00's in the philosophical school in Paris.

Now I am based on the aesthetics of the Six Hormones, the Six Famous Hormones of Happiness, whose names, like the Seven Sins, no one really remembers.

I spent twenty years looking for a definition for my style of painting, and finally accepted that nobody knew anything about Taoist parables or hormones, simply calling my art expressionism. The word is familiar, European, museum-like, and therefore understandable.

A famous music critic, who agreed to help me analyze my style, called this art co-existence, since it appears in painting precisely so that it can be not only "achieved" through long contemplation, study, feeling and thinking, but can be shared. To give it as a flower, as a word, or as an impression.

Salty Air# 1, 2023

Canvas, acrylic, chalk marker 
110 x 60 cm

THE MANIFEST OF SPRING

I declare the arrival of Vesna in Russian contemporary art as a revival of the legacy of the avant-garde and the establishment of a new abstract language.

The avant-garde, like an abandoned and unloved child, has been long forgotten and rejected by society, the very new society it was supposed to serve. Recognized as a failed experiment, it abandoned the art scene for a long time, giving way to popular lubok and realism.

It was time for the visionary ideas once created to return to the scene to become, with renewed and fresh vigor, the main symbol and reflection of reality.

The new Russian abstractionism will no longer stare at the cosmos, at the distant stars and the universal absolute. On the contrary, it will look under the feet, to the mundane environment in which we live - the dusty streets, the facades of apartment blocks, and the gloom of doorways!

The new Russian abstractionism soaks up the rough textures of concrete, puts on a multi-layered skin of oil paint, displays an endless string of fences and green garages, bristles with metal mesh like a wild animal, and is covered in a scattering of chipped mosaics!

The main colors will be the colors of fences and street lamps, freshly painted benches and plinths, transformer boxes and entryways. Red-brown, military green, indifferent gray, mechanical blue will make laconic monolithic compositions. Long live the colors of porches, schools and hospitals - faded yellow, stale lettuce and dusty pink! And beneath this simple color scheme will hide the rough texture of the chaos of urban forms and artifacts.

The housing estate, a spontaneous and unrestrained phenomenon that renews our streets every year and forms the basic image of the city, will be the main source of inspiration and metaphor of the Russian space. However, the artist should not blindly copy the wall of a house or a fence repainted for the hundredth time, but like a sensitive cutter work with this wild material as with unprocessed rock.

I declare Vesna a new cultural code for Russian visual art. Vesna will be a reflection of our mentality and environment of existence. Instead of Khokhloma and Gzhel - a red-rusted parapet, instead of kokoshnik and matreshka - a gray fence and a chain of green garages, instead of the bear with balalaika - Rabita wire mesh and broken tiles!

Spring sets the following tasks:

1. The revival and actualization of abstraction as a universal expressive language
2. Installation of a new cultural code or style, through the interpretation of the urban environment and its utilitarian elements
3. Simultaneous application of active relief and color schemes on the same plane, thereby uniting painting and sculpture
4. Acceptance and aestheticization of "ugly" color
5. Recognition of the LC phenomenon as an authentic, national phenomenon

Alexey Benza was born in 1993. Predominantly works in the technique of traditional painting/graphics. Prefers figurative composition, uses a realistic manner of writing in the space of myth. Lives and works in Moscow. 

MANIFEST

Art is the Secret Language of Being.

The artist, like any other magician, shaman, thaumaturgist, or alchemist, knows that his main job is to capture and channel the outflow of spirit into matter.

By "spirit" here, of course, we mean the subtle fractions of the higher Reality (with a capital letter), which pass a kind of transmutation through the prism of the author's perception and, reflecting from him as from a mirror, cast glare, rays on the material base: canvas, paper and so on, thereby generating a work of art, "materializing" it.

Reality (with a capital letter) is such a space of the supersensible, superhuman, mountainous level, which is invisibly present along with reality (with a small letter), being a metaphysical basis that simultaneously disavows and includes it in itself.

By reality (with a small letter), we mean the world of the palpable, that is, the reality given to us in the senses.

Why, why would an artist channel his spirit into matter?

The artist is a dependent being. His imaginary subjectivity is often overestimated, being only a musical instrument, like a violin or a flute in the skillful hands of the true Author.

"And from somewhere they hear singing..." - artists simply can't keep what they hear within themselves without reproducing it. Like a gravely ill person, condemned to infect everything around him with his disease.

Is it possible to stop this flow, to block all channels of communication and interrupt the retransmission? Perhaps we can, but then how will Reality contact us? If we cut off this possibility, wouldn't we thereby close the auditory window through which communication between the worlds is established?

Thanks to ciphers, codes, and cryptograms, it is possible to send secret messages from there, from the dreamspace of meaning, to our world on the other side as well. Art resorts to all kinds of mythologies, metaphors and allegories for this purpose.

The secret language is, of course, impossible to learn. But it is necessary to wander somnambulously through the "Chinese room," in order to give its own, special meaning to everything we touch in the darkness.

Cognition of the Dark Speeches sent down by God into the world, the birth of a star from the cosmic dance of insights, purification from the stupefaction of modernity - this is the directional expansion in the Land of Great Dreams...

Nikolai Ryndin is an artist, teacher at the Moscow Central School of Art (MCAA) at the Russian Academy of Arts, author and host of the independent YouTube channel about art “Artobstrel”

Deviantilism Manifesto:

• Physical destruction of the object / destruction of the object's function
• documentation of destruction / deformation
• destruction = creation 
• destruction = the beginning of a new history
• restoration = destruction
• destruction as a cultural code
• destruction not as an act of affect and mental confusion, but as a conscious act. 

Something to build on: 

• the ruins and hulks of temples
• erased frescoes, barely recognizable silhouettes of saints
• irreparable loss of the colorful layer on icon boards
• a half-rotten hut with gray timbers and porosol on the roofs
• a gnarled fence that protects nothing
• a gate in the field that leads nowhere
• a rusty truck with no wheels and no windows
• black seams on paneled houses
• bare concrete with rebar sticking out of it
• old tires of all colors and swans made of them
• a broken jug, a lid and a rusty cast iron
• zigzag bridge with sparse planks

Constituents of the work:

• inversion
• paradox
• contrast
• duality
• uncertainty
• uncertainty
• randomness

Through loss we learn the true value of what we have lost. the Buddha statues destroyed by the taliban have gained much more significance than before. the same is true of the temple of christ the savior. unfortunately, the restoration of the temple has negatively affected the image of the previously lost historical object. our russian architecture, frescoes and iconography are valuable together with losses, and losses are taken for granted. it is impossible to imagine russian culture without losses, just as it is impossible to imagine christ crucified without Judas.

The human act of destroying a cultural monument can be compared to natural disasters in nature, be it a tornado or a hurricane. but people are part of this nature. a person who destroys is one of the hypostases of a being, be it a person who loves, grieves or laughs.

Many natural acts of destruction of physical matter are extended in time and are natural, but I encourage you to be inspired by them in the short period of time it takes to create an object of art, in the desire to achieve a similar “nerve”. just as when we are inspired by the beauty of nature by painting it, in a vain attempt to replicate it, for it is impossible.

MANIFEST

The Spirit of Time