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Open Group (Yuriy Biley, Pavlo Kovach, Anton Varga): Repeat after Me II / Polish Pavilion at Venice Art Biennale 2024. Venice (Italy), April 19, 2024.
Official description: Repeat after Me II is a collective portrait of witnesses of the war in Ukraine. The protagonists of two films from 2022 and 2024 are civilian war refugees who speak of the war as recalled through the sounds of firearms, and then invite the audience to repeat after them. The artists use a karaoke format. The accompaniment here is not hit tunes: it is shots, missiles, howling, and explosions—and the lyrics are descriptions of deadly weapons. This is the soundtrack of a war that the witnesses try to recreate. The ability to recognise these sounds can save their lives, and we are invited to learn the language of their experiences. The audience can repeat the sounds of the weapons or withdraw into the safe space designed to resemble a karaoke bar. Yet this is no ordinary bar, like the ones we know: it is an instructional karaoke venue forecasting an even more militarised future. This spectre will remain with us for so long as nationalist imperialist policies will be accepted as part of a diplomatic compromise.
Official description: Repeat after Me II is a collective portrait of witnesses of the war in Ukraine. The protagonists of two films from 2022 and 2024 are civilian war refugees who speak of the war as recalled through the sounds of firearms, and then invite the audience to repeat after them. The artists use a karaoke format. The accompaniment here is not hit tunes: it is shots, missiles, howling, and explosions—and the lyrics are descriptions of deadly weapons. This is the soundtrack of a war that the witnesses try to recreate. The ability to recognise these sounds can save their lives, and we are invited to learn the language of their experiences. The audience can repeat the sounds of the weapons or withdraw into the safe space designed to resemble a karaoke bar. Yet this is no ordinary bar, like the ones we know: it is an instructional karaoke venue forecasting an even more militarised future. This spectre will remain with us for so long as nationalist imperialist policies will be accepted as part of a diplomatic compromise.
