Nothing has happened today

2016 Institute of contemporary art, Moscow; Printing factory art space

Dual channel video installation
Duration: 28′ 50″
Production: Alexander Minchenko
Based on HD Screen

Fridge magnets
Dimensions: 5 x 7 cm

A stone in the forest, which became a meme, came into life about four years ago on Twitter, Livejournal and later on the Vkontakte public page (Russian social network, now rebranded to vk.com). The activity of a fictional character, the stone, consists of daily posts, containing the same line every day, “Today’s nothing happened.” After a detailed and thorough reading of the entire public history, it is possible to find some insignificant events mentioned.

The character can be viewed equally as the model of common user behavior in social networks, where regular meaningless posts, in fact, have to be put online to confirm their authors’ existence. Similarly, media regardless of the presence or absence of news is obliged to provide daily overviews and summaries.

Background 3D animation illustrates the most popular news topics in Russia’s media over the past year.