Test Group

Graduation show of The Rodchenko School

«TEST GROUP»

Graduation show of The Rodchenko Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia 22.06 — 10.07
In late capitalism, testing is a common way to improve quality of life. All the things we use today, and
will use tomorrow, can be upgraded. To make systems better, we give our data over to developers
who carefully collect and analyze it. The beta-version state becomes natural for contemporary
systems. Where there used to be objects, today we see processes, links, and connections. Ideas of
hierarchy and deep structures are replaced with the idea of networks, and networks are becoming
more homogeneous and horizontal.

As a result, virtually all user experience shifts into test mode: corporations invest vast amounts of
resources into research in order to enhance our purchasing power. The space of interaction between
human and non-human agents turns into a massive open laboratory in which everyone is
simultaneously tested, and themselves tests, new images, models and algorithms.

A test group is a social unit selected for an experiment, one which is becoming increasingly dispersed,
illusory, and transparent, and whose subject is growing more and more elusive. If the world today is
not a world of information, but a world of experience, then how fundamental to our being is this «test»
mode of existence, and how does this idea affect various artistic practices? Is it possible to say that
artists are testing their models in search of temporary autonomous zones of aesthetic and social action,
or, without realizing it, are themselves becoming part of someone else’s testing practice?

Eugenia Suslova

Curator of the exhibition — Kirill Preobrazhensky
Architect — Vladimir Rostov
Coordinator — Lana Abramova

Artists:
Natalia Alfutova, Elizaveta Karamanova, Ekaterina Karamazova, Daria Barybina, Pavel Bukreev,
Galla Guintovt, Gediminas Daugela, Andrey Isakin, Sergey Kazakov, Natasha Kononova, Aleksander
Kutovoi, Galina Leonova, DeadJPEG, Anya Marchenkova, Almema, Albina Mokhryakova, Anvar
Mussirepov, Ekaterina Popovich, Anna Rotaenko, Kirill Saveliev, Evgeniya Suslova, Nikolay
Smirnov, Alyosha Smolyannikov, Alisa Smorodina, Dmitry Starusev, Egor Fedorichev, Egor
Tsvetkov, Alyona Shapovalova.