It was a RP stunt that spawned countless internet memes, leading to political uproar in Russia.
Now the ‘Putin rides’ phenomenon, which mocks a publicity photo of the Russian president riding a horse topless, has been used in an exhibition by a Dundee University PhD student.
Alejandro Ball is part of PILproject, an artist group that explores the artistic properties of .gif and meme formats.
The group became fascinated with the ‘Putin rides’ memes, which used the horse-riding photo of the president to super impose it into other pictures.
PILproject travelled to Russia to investigate the politics of Russia and the country’s relationship with the internet, meeting artists Rostan Tavasiev and Ksenia Pilsova, who they have now invited to collaborate on the exhibition.
Their exhibition, ‘PILproject 2.0: Russia. Be blinded by an inner light’, is taking place at the Centrespace Gallery this week.
Alejandro said, “This exhibition will serve to present our research findings and will examine the effects of control and surveillance, and the dystopia of internet freedom.
“The ‘Putin Rides’ meme pushed us to investigate the politics of Russia and the internet further, and how the implementation of the country’s recent internet content law had affected artists operating on the net.”
Each artist will initiate a different performative element of internet meme culture from the perspective of their locality, with Tavasiev’s efforts culminating in an interactive social media performance, hosted on Facebook.
The exhibition will run until Saturday, October 29. Opening hours are Monday to Saturday, 12-4.30pm.
Centrespace Gallery is part of Duncan of Jordanstone’s Visual Research Centre, which is located on the lower levels of Dundee Contemporary Arts.
