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Igor-Demidov — Still dreaming of London
Published: 2016-07-03 21:20:16 +0000 UTC; Views: 715; Favourites: 42; Downloads: 8
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Description
Lonely graffiti on the roof of concrete building somewhere in TulaRelated content
Comments: 18
I love your photos. I can't help but wonder who lives there, what life is like....
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I think they live some kind of "normal" life. I'm sure everyone will say so. 
Thanks for feedback!
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beautiful photo ... it's true sometimes people do dream
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Are you sure you didn't photoshop it onto there? It looks so vivid! The geometric shapes on the building in the foreground make me more curious. Who decided that they needed to be there, how the artist came to those particular shapes etc, what it's intended to mean perhaps, if anything. It's a good picture though, it captures my attention. Looking at it feels like staring at a horizon.
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I can tell you one thing: I'm too lazy to draw so many wires above the picture. So you can be sure - this is not photoshop. Contrast, local contrast, colour correction - this was done in photoshop but not more.
By the way you can download it i full size and make some checks
Why did Artist has chosen this place - I have no conclusions. But he did it right - i noticed it. And I think many people did so. And we can see so great contrast between this ugly concrete jungle and historical part of London... I think it really has some sense !
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Ugly is an understatement here, post-apocalyptic would seem more appropriate. When I was in primary school we were taught about the basic human necessities: food, clothing, shelter. Which demonstrates the general materialism of the world we live in, because in my opinion they left out another basic human necessity, perhaps the most fundamental of all: to feel that one's existence makes a difference. Forcing people to live in places like these is like telling them "You don't matter at all". In fact, you should round up the politicians responsible for places like this and make them go from door to door, and tell those people straight in their faces: "You don't matter at all". That would be a good exercise for them! And it doesn't just happen in Russia of course, France for example has plenty of places like this one too. And then they wonder why those people at some point lose it and start rioting and setting cars on fire. At least the artist sends a clear message here: "I do matter". They could have also painted a nice scene from the Патриаршие пруды. I should visit that place some day, after all I read the book!
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Your words about basic human needs reminded me Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I opened wikipedia and... There was a surprise!
Maslow's hierarchy of needs has different number of levels in russian and english versions of article!!!
Looks like people really different in their needs!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%2…
ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D…
But anyway my Idea was that our needs transform and grow after we got something from previous level of hierarchy.
So politicans can not be responsible for every unsatisfied need of human being. Because the needs are growing.
I prefer to think that human must make all that he can to satisfy self needs. And politicians must make the way for him clear. (Education, healthcare, infrastructure, conditions for making business)
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What I meant was that, while in the past two decades unimaginable amounts of money have been flowing into Russia from oil and gas revenue, those who are at the receiving end seem more interested in shipping it out to places like Switzerland, London, Nice and flashy air castles like Dubai, than in investing it in their own country. Improving the living conditions of the population (at least giving buildings like these a proper makeover, just to send a signal to the people living there: "You matter to us") would be just one aspect. Now that the oil prices are low all of a sudden they're talking about "diversification". They could have come up with that a bit sooner, right?
But never mind the politics, I've seen (on pictures) that the inner cities in Russia, or at least the bigger ones, have by and large been decently refurbished. Some do really look beautiful and immaculate. Which brings us to your wiki pages: if you look at those colorful pyramids, Russian people seem to have a need which the rest of us lack: one for aesthetics. And it ranks pretty high, just below sel-realization. Very interesting! That would explain the need for beautiful inner cities
I come across such wiki discrepancies all the time, most often with regard to history and politics of course, but also with respect to science. And not just about trivialities like "who exactly invented the radio", but about fundamental views on what science itself is exactly as well. These discrepancies are a recipe for misunderstanding, as sometimes the same terminology is used for different things, or entire scientific branches venerated in one realm are entirely absent in the other. Very interesting stuff!
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Maslow said only 2 % of people reaches the rank of self-realization. That means that not many Russians reach the need of beauty and aesthetics. And it explains why we do see such buildings in Tula - the just reached the stage of safety some years ago. So aesthetic is far beyond today.
I agree with your point of view about oil money and things like that... but it does not matter at all because it changes nothing. And by the way, very few politicians can do a thing about it too.
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In 2011 an art collection known as the Peter Stuyvesant Collection was sold. A guy named Alexander Orlow became the managing director of a cigarette factory in the Netherlands in the 1950s and hung his factory full with works of contemporary art in order to boost the morale of the factory workers. Productivity went up and sick leave went down. It's weird that his example wasn't widely followed. vorige.nrc.nl/international/ar…
What you wrote about people taking initiative reminded me of a documentary I saw a few years ago, about a social experiment unwittingly performed by a building corporation somewhere in the US in the 1980s. I think it was in Pittsburg or Detroit, not sure. They had a problem with their tenants in an apartment block who vandalized stuff all the time, and as soon as they fixed it, it got broken it again. In an act of despair they finally sold the apartments to the tenants for the symbolic sum of $1 each, just to get rid of them and the responsibility for the building. And then, much to everyone's surprise, the tenants suddenly started taking great care of their neighborhood in their new capacity as home owners. Not only did they now have something to feel responsible for, they also had something to lose. In the 90s governments across the western world suddenly started aggressively promoting home ownership, much helped by R. Reagan's hallucinations about a "self-regulating financial sector", which would ultimately lead to the financial crisis of 2008. I don't know if there's a direct connection, but I can imagine that news about a mechanism that turns potential insurgents into "good law-abiding citizens" would spread like wildfire in those circles.
In both cases the people involved were made to feel as if they made a difference.
So you might be wrong about your fellow citizens' need for aesthetics, and what you wrote about initiative might simply be a matter of finding the right "switch". Leadership can bring out the best and worst in people, and it is certainly a fact that most people need leadership. But it is also my personal experience that is you treat people like idiots, they will act like idiots, and if you treat them like shit they will act like shit.
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Your ideas and examples are quite clear for me. But one thing I expect from all people - feeling responsible for their own life, future, world around. That feeling brings the understanding - which decisions they can leave for politicians and which they must make by their own.
The reverse mechanism does work too: If someone let treat him as the voiceless animal in horde - then some day there will be a man, who will treat him so. If someone do not want to think, to take the initiative, to decide, to take responsibility for self decisions - then he is not worthy nothing more then to be like an animal in horde and as a result to live like an animal.
This is not just words. That ugly buildings is the result of such life concept. People do not want to do take minimal part in the process of management. They have the building management company affiliated with state, which collects money from the citizens, but do nothing to improve the life and make reconstruction or just repair of the building. People do not want to change the company or just to write the claim about their work. They do not want to change politicians, who responsible for the work of the company. They do not want to organize repair or just some little improvements by their own.
I have my own experience in such aspects. People of our building do not want to unite to make our own territory. They do not want to make security zone near building. They do not want to stop cars driving through our yard. They do not want to pay for concierge in doorway. They are ready to live in dirty and insecure place.
I think such people deserves such politicians and such life.
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I once lived above a bar and the tenants were always complaining about the landlord and about the rent being so high. I did some research and I found out that the rents we paid were about 30% above the legal level. So I went to my fellow tenants asking them to join me so together we could force the landlord to bring them down. You can guess the replies I got: "I'd rather stay out of this", "I don't want to get involved", "I don't see the problem here". What pissed me off wasn't their inertia, but the fact that they always had such a big mouth about everything, and when they had a chance to do something about it they pulled back. I did write a letter to the landlord on my own behalf, asking him to reduce the rent. Not that I expected anything from it, as I was already planning to move out, I just enjoyed the idea of scaring the hell out of him, which judging buy his reaction worked perfectly
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