7 Ноября
Photographs of Lithuanians, joyously marching in a parade to honor their occupants seemed a highest achievement in experiment of manipulating. The happening seemed a pure act of naivety and ignorance. Throughout the year I’ve been thinking about the act of putting viewer in a position when he voluntary places himself in unexpected danger. I saw this parallel in faces of people who believed in the Bright Future of Communism. Though now communism sounds an obvious evil, I believe after World War II a demolished nation must have seen the Great Chance in that red future. In this project, as the crowds back in those days, the viewer receives signals of communism (Cyrillic font, red colour, parade photos), though he is invited to participate in the Experiment (aka Communism) in writing his name into a greeting card. Then gradually, while translating the text with a help of provided dictionaries, he understands where he had signed in.
Curiosity denies the common sense. To an unprepared viewer the pictures of parade might look like an ordinary sports/military event. I had to find proper means of display to attract viewer’s attention. Pictures by Ilja Fischeris in alarm-clocks, meanwhile, have widened the content – it worries when one has the passing time behind the photographs – the time left till the danger might strike.
