Permanent Decay

The video work «Permanent Decay» is a part of the series «Post-Soviet Decay», which is dealing with topics of accepting one's own cultural origins, its influence on a set of mind and formation of personality; the importance and impact of the past on present and future life.

The video is consists out of basic set of rooms that have standard purposes - bathroom, toilet, living room, dining room, bedroom, cabinet, kitchen, but in the video it is being used in the unusual way, giving those set-ups a different sense.

The structure of the room stays immobile. Same room over and over, action happens in the same space, the interior change from scene to scene, but it does not change the position of viewer according the action. As space changes, some objects disappear completely, some find new meanings and purposes. In some parts space feels cluttered. Cluttered space often tend to collect memories, in the video, spaces like this refer to collecting past.

None of the rooms have windows. Interior without windows has a meaning of disinterest in other people lives, and fear of what can be there on the other side. Space without windows feels like a basement, the place, where ones can hide their secrets from other's observation, which sends the viewer back to the motive of being closed from the world behind the pleasant walls of a comfort zone.

The big part of the video is taken by the symbol of the carpet, it appears in the backgrounds as well as in the interior itself. This symbol is seen as an ugly attribute of an old times that already past through, the thing one is trying to run away from, but keeps returning to. It is all around and sucking everything inside of the carpet world.

Objects like a shopping carts appearing from time to time. They are laying abandoned, and represent something that can be easily stolen without punishment, and absolutely useless.

Weapons and handworker's tools are noticeable in the transition part and in the interior. The purpose of weapons is a self-protection from unknown and world around, and to look cooler then you really are, and scare everyone away. But weapons in the video are made from plastic, and colored in bright colors that could not seriously scare anyone, as well as the screwdrivers and other tools, that meant to be used by men. By coloring them in the vivid colors it gives harmless meaning to deathly tool. Plastic weapons is what children use as a toys in their plays to pretend to be cool.

In the sound side of the video listener is facing a similar approach of using a range of objects as in the visual side. The soundtrack is composition of the processed and distorted sounds of objects itself. Sounds of metal screwdrivers on the heating radiator, doors opening, chairs moving, lamp switching on and off. Through the use of sound materiality goes inside of the video and puts the composition of sequences all together.

The abstract plot and the soundtrack is telling the story of the process of influence of the culture and points of view of others a on personality of an unspecific individual and the importance of the past.