Mad Mimes



Video Artist: Dimitri Venkov
Country: Year: Duration: 30 min 0 sec

Description:

Anthropologists discover artifacts of a pagan tribe in a thin forest along the Moscow Ring Road – a highway that marks the boundaries of the Russian capital. The tribe is entirely dependent on roadside trash collected along the highway: lost items, road signs, car parts enter into their material culture and are used in rituals, which symbolically reflect the life of the road. Under the guidance of a shaman and with the help of psychoactive substances the members of the tribe induce themselves into a state of trance where they ecstatically imitate the actions of road workers, truck drivers and road policemen. 


Dimitri Venkov

Dimitri Venkov is a Russian artist and filmmaker. His works have been part of Documenta 14, Oberhausen Film Festival, Moscow, Bergen, and Gothenburg biennials. He has been awarded numerous prestigious prizes such as Kandinsky, FIPRESCI, e-flux, and others. Dimitri holds a Master of Arts degree in film history and is a professor of video art at Moscow’s Rodchenko School of Photography and Multimedia.