A dog, a mummy, and Malevich's Black Square walk into a museum...
The last film in Vidokle's trilogy on Cosmism is a meditation on the museum as the site of resurrection-a central idea for many Cosmist thinkers, scientists and avant-garde artists. Filmed at the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Moscow Zoological Museum, The Lenin Library, and the Museum of Revolution, the film looks at museological and archival techniques of collection, restoration and conservation as a means of the material restoration of life, following an essay penned by Nikolai Federov on this subject in the 1880s. The film follows a cast comprised of present-day followers of Federov, several actors, artists and a Pharaoh Hound that playfully enact a resurrection of a mummy, a close examination of Malevich's Black Square, Rodchenko's spatial constructions, taxidermied animals, artifacts of the Russian Revolution, skeletons, and mannequins in tableau vivant-like scenes, in order to create a contemporary visualization of the poetry implicit in Federov's writings.
Direction
Vidokle turns taxidermy into spiritual choreography
Cinematography
Lenin's library never looked this beautifully cursed
Production
The Pharaoh Hound deserves its own resurrection cult
Director
Anton Vidokle
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Cosmism was a real Russian philosophical movement that believed technology could resurrect the dead and colonize space — basically 19th-century transhumanism with way more poetry and worse odds.
The Pharaoh Hound is a deliberate choice: ancient Egyptian dogs were literally mummified for the afterlife, making this very good boy a meta-commentary on its own species' resurrection history.
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