Remember, love, grieve

Not all flash mobs in social networks are so tenacious: the action launched by the Kolta on Facebook “Recall the 90s” due to the scope that it acquired really seems “politically planned”, and the patriots felt a hidden threat in these pictures. In general, the reaction is understandable. Any flash mob does not want to win anyone, its essence, as a rule, is its form, it does not have a goal - except for the one that everyone at about the same time does approximately the same thing. “A harmless, at first glance, flash mob” - this phrase of pronounced columnists was taken from the vocabulary of Soviet newspapers: it is harmlessness, aimlessness - the main danger to the totalitarian structure of the psyche. Aimlessness scares any power lovers more than a frank manifestation of hostility - because it is a generous scattering of minutes and hours of their own life, a public sweat, that is, a disposal of oneself, that is, freedom. Actually, aimlessness is the sign of the 90s-the general excessive generosity of the gesture; They are divided by this nadiacity with a scale of sacrifice.

Photos of the 90s fix, first of all, a change in a public pose. A typical intellectual photograph, for example, the 70-80s-sit in a row, half-blooding, everyone is looking at the frame, from three to 20 people; As a rule, at the set table. Here - this must be pronounced with the semi -ironic intonation of Parfenov - "the eyes, first of all, are important - because not everything can be said aloud yet." The demonstration of community is important. It is important, finally, compliance with traditions: the collective picture of intellectuals in Kratov compositionally does not always differ from the photo documentation of the meeting of the Politburo with the fraternal committee.

The expression on the face of the 90s is not a smile, but a surprise: this is what I am capable of, it turns out.

Another, no less powerful (although not new) adjoins this tradition. People of the 70s-early 80s born well, remembers their children's photos. It was customary to drive children from year to seven in the photo studio, for example, once a year. It was a monstrous ritual, a rite of initiation, as we understand now, having read Pelevin. Some Soviet eye first recorded you, you became visible, manifested on the film. You were dressed “as expected”, your gaze was “as it should” - this was achieved, you became part of the norm. People who later leafed through, already in adulthood, other people's photo albums fell into hysteria because millions of children's photographs were indistinguishable - regardless of whether they arose in Cherepovets, Batumi or Kaliningrad. They shot not to fix individuality - but to make everyone on one face. Especially these children's pens, folded in front, with a plush bear, with a oblique doll and a shout “They didn’t move!”, Flapping in memory forever, is a bright injury to childhood.

All these pictures were taught not to live for themselves - for society, parents, for reporting - for others. A photograph of the 90s, first of all, is for yourself. And by and large - for no one, for nothing. Photos of the 90s, which are now posted on the network, were an unconscious struggle against these two traditions: a friendly official photo at the table and the Isaver-Isversky from the studio. In the photographs of the 90s, a person is often recorded at the time of the greatest deviation from the norm. This was an act of symbolic revenge for Soviet humiliation and shout “Sit Smirno”.

The expression on the face of the 90s is not a smile, but some surprise: this is what I am capable of, it turns out, here I am. In fact, this discovery of oneself, frankness, hope. Well, freedom. This freedom as such is not realized: it is just confusion from the fact that now everything is possible. Relatively speaking, there are exactly the same photo for those who work in the presidential administration today or on federal television channels. Exactly the same dubious faces - before the first bottle of foreign vodka or a shadow on the wall with the first iron. But they, of course, do not post these photos. According to the tradition that has developed in Russia, freedom here is understood as a misconception, a mistake of youth, a temporary, formal, and not substantive phenomenon. For example, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, as you know, listened to Deep Purple in his youth, but this aesthetic experience did not become value. This is the property of the Soviet, even intelligent person - to share: the idea of ​​freedom is one thing, and real life is another. They comfort themselves today, looking at your photos from the 90s. Do they envy you? ..

The general feature of these photos of the 90s is ontological poverty; It is noticeable that people still have “clothes”, and not, for example, a dress or trousers.

Those who sacrificed their freedom for the sake of the current “success” are annoying in these pictures that the reminder that freedom was once instinct, air itself, and then was rationalized, strangled and tucked into trousers. In its own way, to the will. And when they drag out their romance about the “dashing years”, they actually want to inspire us that there was only one path to wealth and success - this is how they are: through humiliation, through the sale of souls. They would like to hide the existence of other growth opportunities (both then and now), the possibility of choosing. And these damned photos remind them of this. The fact that everyone was at that time and everyone disposed of it differently.

The general feature of these photos of the 90s is some kind of ontological poverty; It is noticeable that people still have “clothing”, and not, for example, a dress or trousers; In the same way as everyone else has “food”, “drinking”, “swill” - and not a variety or endurance. This poverty is the replacement of the Benjaminov aura; It is precisely this poverty that oozes from all the cracks creates a feeling of originality, and some rare clothing often becomes the center of the composition, which, oddly enough, only emphasizes the general poverty. It is difficult to understand how poor we were compared to the present time - even those who were already relatively rich. It was this desire - never to be poor again - moved by everyone who in these photos. And again, everyone solved this problem in different ways.

Actually, in the 90s in Russia there was no integral sense of time-as before, in the 80s, or after, in zero. In the 90s, a gap was formed, and everyone went there in a whole country. It was creepy. Life became not cyclical, but discrete, all the clocks broke, and this flash mob is - again in the spirit of Benjamin - an attempt to recreate the integrity of time with the back number - according to the pictures; Put it in a closet with linen, stack, formalize. Finally, to pack it between the 80s and zero, turn into the same as "now." But in fact it is self -deception. If the 90s were understood correctly, they would become a life-giving source of the future; Non-understanding, they remained a mystery-but in any case, they, the 90s, slip away. How to eliminate any time of freedom in Russia.

In fact, only these photos remained.

The project is carried out with the support of the Foundation "Presidential Center B.N. Yeltsin ”(Yeltsin Center) , the educational portal“ Your History ” and the Museon Art Park .