From AC/DC Talk series.

So, just a couple of days after they displayed their 'Body Space' at Central House of Artists, AES artists again are treating body space, this time with scissors. Basically both the visual images and the commentary appeal to virtual reality. The theme of violence, that AES are so interested in, is the main drivetrain of this world besides basic and less exciting stimuli already studied and prescribed by Freudians. Violence is a basis for literature, cinema, video, music, electronic and computer entertainment, for mass-media as a source of the news of the world, and finally for life itself. Archaic 'cops and thieves' stuff transformed into bloody plots of cartridge and computer games. Natural is desire to consume sound and image with the quality of Dolby Stereo, CD and satellite communication; so natural is a thrive for maximum realism of electronic virtual violence, from the conventionally primitive arcanoids to the concrete kick-n-bunch action games like Mortal Kombat to unlimited insanity of 3D virtual helmets-gloves-chairs which give DOOM fans total freedom of demolition.

Violence, as a theme, an idea and a state of mind, is already becoming ungratifying stuff to speak of; let's leave it for puritans and partisans of political correctness. To do violence - that's a worthy task for creative individuals around the world, and first of all for contemporary artists as their avant-garde. David Lynch and Steven Spielberg to Oliver Stone and Qwentin Tarantino, AC/DC and Sting to Red Hot Chilli Pepper and acid house, Bruce Nauman and Cindy Sherman to Anatoly Osmolovsky and Oleg Kulik to AES group - they all force their heroes, themselves and us to cry, bleed, kill and be killed. At this point the Frankenstein image produced by AES (mind that Lev Evzovich looks much alike his alter ego) resembles with the same 'dreadful' and artificial Freddie Krueger, or his 'younger brother' Eddy the Scissorhands. Full-blooded and safe violence, remote by screen frame or exhibition space, is certainly more interesting than safe sex packed into rubber sheets in fear of AIDS. Although directors of 'Terminators' and Die Hards' can't afford Pentagon's might in producing anything like 'Desert Storm', but CNN has outstripped itself in coverage of this typical action movie. The war at the Gulf 'haven't happened' as much as Gannibal Lector didn't bite his victims' noses. That is the war did happen. Good guys almost always overcome bas guys; but the main idea is that bad guys should be really bad, tough and kick good guys' ass; if not - they wouldn't be worth seeing.

Anyway AES have a view of their own. If the CNN cameraman is driven to a bloody battlefield, besides high payment, by pathological intention to deliver 'truth as it is', then Arzamasova and Evzovich are a kind of meta- cameramen, who capture their own life from beyond the good and evil. In the above mentioned Mortal Kombat game player and his computer counterparts slice and slash each other to death. Being asked by a Newsweek correspondent about the violence and destruction, the salesman at Manhattan computer store said, grinning 'Oh, no. It's really educational. It teaches all about parts of the body and how to perform surgery'. The answer worth of contemporary artist. We have no choice but follow methods of politically correct censorship from the friendly superpower, and label this 'family' exhibition catalog with a warning sticker 'Mature. Ages 17+'. By the way, one outstanding game maker designed his own rating 'PC' (which usually means 'politically correct') - for 'profound carnage'. That could be a contemporary artwork, a kind of multimedia ready-made.

To finish with AES, let's remind that the term 'virtual' is derived from 'virtue', that means not only inherent power, but also goodness, moral excellence and uprightness. So Viva Virtual Violence!