Ekaterina Karasyova

Tired toys are sleeping

Ekaterina Karasyova

Tired toys are sleeping

The project ‘Tired Toys Are Sleeping’ by Rodchenko Art School alumnus Ekaterina Karasyova (Video Art Workshop of Kirill Preobrazhensky and Dmitri Venkov) represents the artist’s reaction to the increasingly vague boundary between reality and make-believe in today’s world flooded by fake news from media and social networking services that strive to create an illusion of well-being.

In many respects, Karasyova’s installation continues the tradition of Russian underground art of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Among the best-known media parodies of that time were the experimental ‘Pirate TV’ created by Timur Novikov, Yuris Lesnik and Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe during the last days of the USSR as a satire on official TV and Sergey Kuryokhin’s televised hoax ‘Lenin was a mushroom’. Imitating the visual and speech devices of contemporary mass media, Karasyova creates an alternative television ‘for those who do not watch TV’.

‘TV has expanded people’s horizons and introduced them to new aspects of the world, whether the real documentary world or the irreal, staged and imaginary world,’ says the artist. ‘It has engendered the realities of contemporary life, including YouTube channels and Instagram stories. Now, everyone can create their own “TV” and can control it with the help of a remote control, a mouse or their finger. Everything seems irreal – nothing but a game. Where will our immersion in these worlds lead?

The “TIRED TOYS ARE SLEEPING” TV channel marks an attempt to return to the sources. Using generally accepted title and program formats, the channel shows things that neither dictate nor impose opinions and are neither good nor bad.

What is real life like? Perhaps we should take a look around us instead of staring at the monitors.’

Ekaterina Karasyova was born in 1992 in Moscow. In 2019, she graduated from the Rodchenko Art School, where she studied video art with Kirill Preobrazhensky and Dmitri Venkov. She has also received a degree in graphic design from Moscow Art and Industry Institute (2016). She has participated in the exhibitions ‘Saturnalia’ (Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art, 2012 and 2013), ‘Sound Variantology’ (Rodchenko Art School, 2018), ‘Blind Spot’ (Ekaterina Cultural Foundation, 2019), exhibitions at the Milyutinsky Art Squat (2015–2017), and others. She has also organised apartment shows. As part of her own art project, she left paintings at roadside stops while travelling across Russia. She also took part in designing the Outline Festival (2016).