BLISS II

When I moved to Armenia, I often woke up at night to thunderstorms, thinking it was an Azerbaijani missile attack. In the place where I stayed there were awesome emerald mountains. Looking at them made me think about how many people lay there, underneath the grass. I left Russia when the war started, and now the war caught up with me in Armenia. I've tried to ensconce myself in some sort of kitschy calmness, trying to escape the horrible reality. One of the things that I found myself doing was staring at the popular Windows XP desktop picture "Bliss" where the sun gliding over peaceful green fields. This is where the name for this short animation comes from. The "II" is a reference to Gursky's famous photographic art piece "Rhine II". Rhine is one of the biggest rivers in Europe, and it's harrowing how many corpses floated on its waters during WWII. But in Gursky’s photograph buildings, people, sidewalks are removed via digital image manipulation in order to create a picture of an impossible, non-existent, perfect river. This is where the name for this short animation comes from. The "II" is a reference to Gursky's famous photographic art piece "Rhine II". Rhine is one of the biggest rivers in Europe, and it's harrowing how many corpses floated on its waters during WWII. But in Gursky’s photograph buildings, people, sidewalks are removed via digital image manipulation in order to create a picture of an impossible, non-existent, perfect river.

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