Denis Davydov’s Splinters of the Demographic Explosion of the 90s is part of his vast Gameland project that studies the cultural heritage of the 1990s – an ambiguous transition period in the history of his native country Uzbekistan. This was a time of radical change when the worldview that had seemed immutable just a short time previously began to vastly change before one’s very eyes. Davydov looks at this period retroactively by expressing the experience and cultural symbols of the time in “state-of-the-art” forms and materials that are at the forefront of present-day societal trends.

The subject of the work is quite simple: two cars symbolizing two key elements of the artist’s understanding of the time enter into a mortal collision in slow motion. One of the cars belongs to gangsters, and the other to the police – the two principal and essentially parallel forces of the post-Soviet nineties.

Did something emerge out of the collapse of the Soviet project? Davydov poses this question in his looped video without giving any definite answer. Proposing the idea of possibility that the splinters of the nineties are simply us.

The video also includes a vast array of historical references, many of which are encoded in audio. The cars shatter into splinters to the sound of breaking glass generated by the ringtones of early Motorola mobiles. These telephones were important markers of the age as well as being indispensable attributes of both “cops” and “robbers.” Davydov intentionally combines the sound of breaking glass with the tolling of bells, which often resounded at the funerals of these protagonists of the nineties who dreamt of a fast and beautiful life. A tape-recorded mix of female voices performing the hit songs of the day provides a counterpoint to the bells. Frenzied, vulgar and upbeat, pop music was another sign of the times. This short period symbolically stretched by the artist between wild and carefree pop music and tolling bells may be said to make up the life of the heroes of the 1990s.

Splinters of the Demographic Explosion of the 90s, 2022
Computer graphics,
resolution: 7920*2160, duration: 3’45”
Courtesy of the Artist

Project team

Visualisation and Animation: Eugeniy Padalkin
Research and Coordination: Amalia Tumasova
Art Consulting: Andrey Misiano