Party of the Dead: Necroaesthetics and Transformation of Political Performanity in Russia During the Pandemic
The Dead in the Dead City
[Party]_[1]On April 5, 2020, a few days after the regime of self-isolation had been implemented in Russia,[1] the so-called deadmen — members of the St. Petersburg performance collective Party of the Dead (Kristina Bubentsova, Maria Vonogova, Maria Nelubova, Maxim Evstropov) — gathered in an apartment not far from the city center, where a corpse prop awaited them. The deadmen went out into the empty streets of the city, carrying the fake corpse (wrapped in a white cloth) on a medical stretcher, thus transgressing the stay-at-home state order with their performative funerary procession. … Read more