Currently the world is experiencing exhaustion in the form of helplessness in just about every aspect of living, whether it be in politics, international relations, finance, health care, energy, climate change, education, etc. This predicament has resulted in the total failure of both conservative and liberal ideologies, and has left a gap in our understanding of how to proceed. In ancient Greek the word for helplessness is “Amechania”. The antonym for this is “Mechania”, meaning mechanics, machines, technology – which are also things human beings need to create in order not to be helpless.
Project for the Venice Biennale is a seagoing submersible craft designed to metaphorically navigate the same sea of discord/unrest in the world.
The conceptual model for the vessel is based upon the tradition of the early Soviet “agit-trains”, which were designed by the constructivist artists as a kind of propaganda, or “agitation machines.” The vessel’s purpose will be to act in an interventionist-like manner, similar to a Trojan Horse that is designed to take people unaware due to its form, but which is actually designed to ambush the viewer through the use of propaganda. The appearance of the piece will be anti hi-tech, and will also “pretend” to deliver a strong message. The vessel installation will be similar to a room of curiosities, populated by 3D objects such as the vessel, (which is a very light structure more like a kite), a group of moving images, photographs, and scratched fresco reliefs.
The submersible vessel will have 4 assemblages incorporated into the main structure in the following manner:
Aga Ousseinov was born in Baku in 1962. He graduated from V.I. Surikov Art Academy in Moscow. Living and working in New York since 1991, Aga Ousseinov creates objects that appear as artefacts of past inventions, suggesting something imagined yet not realized. With his inventive skills, he constructs vessels and contraptions inspired by Medieval, European and early Muslim scientific drawings. The absurdity and humor of his Quixotic machine vessels and ironic blueprints pokes fun at ideological hubris, while affirming art as a space for imagining the impossible. He states that these “inventions” pay homage to his early life in the Soviet Union, where hopes for Utopian progress abounded.
Ousseinov’s sculpture exists as a metaphor for travel, or rather escape, from this “idealism.” The implications of his pieces are serious, but their poetry lies in the ambiguity of playfulness versus usefulness. His work is dreamy and fantastic but at the same time addresses the timely issues of consumerism, globalization, and progress – they humorously affirm the role of fetishes for contemporary society. His concern with formal issues, such as scale and material, is simple and unpretentious. His fanciful use of cloth, wire and papier maché in place of the classical materials of sculpture gives his works a look of fragility that belies the strength of their physical and philosophical construction.