Thinking about the current state of the Russian repressive regime
there were several interrelated processes that were insensibly
leading to this point: corruption, censorship, and repressions. It is
important to reflect on this gradual change from a time-stretch
perspective. The work is based on the International Consortium of
Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) dataset of bank leaks given to
journalists, exposing shady patterns of offshore capital ownership.
The dataset consists of the Panama papers, Paradise papers,
Pandora papers, Bahama papers, and Offshore leaks data. The data
connected to Russian offshore stakeholders are read byte by byte,
with the size of each byte affecting the light flashes' brightness and
sound characteristics. Each reading cycle corrupts the information
until the files are completely erased. Information about corruption
decomposes itself in time as if it was corrupted from the inside.
The
information acts as a generative score, which changes during
execution. On the one hand, this mechanic reflects the repressive
mechanism of censorship aimed at independent investigative
journalism. On the other, it ironically plays on the broader English
meaning of the word "corruption", which can refer both to the fact
of financial corruption as well as spoilage, decay, and
decomposition of objects.
Andrey Chugunov works at the turn of digital and analogue media.
He combines sound art, light installation, generative graphics,
technological sculpture, media performances and readymade in his
practice. He researches topics of mortality, temporality, autonomy,
and memory decay in his artworks from the perspective of
meditative media. Andrey won the “New Faces” award in the Art
division at the 22nd Japan Media Arts Festival in 2018.
He is a
nominee for the Sergey Kuryokhin Contemporary Art Award in the
category "Science Art" in 2020. He got a master's degree in Digital
art at the Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok, Russia in
2018-2020. He participated in the “Laboratory of a young artist” at
the Ural branch of the State Center for Contemporary Art in
Yekaterinburg, Russia in 2018. He received an engineering degree in
the field of alternative and renewable energy sources at the Ural
Federal University in Yekaterinburg, Russia in 2008-2013. Andrey
was born in Sverdlovsk, USSR in 1991. Now he bases in Glasgow,
Scotland.
