The urban area is a space of all-seeing power, constant control. People in the city act automatically, every move is predetermined. Man is alienated from his life, which is now a performance. Each of us is flattening and splitting into many identities that do not add up to a single whole.

The game can change this order. Wandering around the city, following the impulses of the territory — this is how Guy Debord came up with the drift. To understand the landscape, you have to get lost properly.

The home area is hidden by the illusion of “well-known space”. My method is a senseless drifting: a path not from point to point, but a process of taking steps.

Walking around the area I live in has become a game of explorer and collector for me. “The act of walking is for the urban system what a speech act is for language or statements made, ” wrote Michel de Certeau. My statement represents an attempt to collect at least part of my own identities together, to mark the space around me.

Considering the city as a territory of contacts, I have repeatedly felt the look of things on myself. It was so strong that I began to collect the objects I found. And watch things go from functional to non-functional. My role also flickers from subject to object and back again and again.

Why? The answer to this question is given by Jean Baudrillard: “A person always collects himself.”

Installation “Nice to meet you” as a part of the exhibition “(in)VISIBLE CITIES” at Nagornaya Gallery, 2021