Suggestive.ru - russian mini resource linking art and propaganda

Browsing through the now dormant Russian art information net agency arteria.ru, i came across the suggestive.ru site.

The website has not been updated for a while, but i think that there is still some content worth taking a look. Conceptualized as an information-analytical resource for researching suggestive media technologies in the field of art, PR, political technologies and propaganda, in its short life time the site managed to gather a number of interesting contemporary view points (in Articles) and a small but well chosen propaganda banners collection of old political campaigns. For example the covers of the Soviet “Znanie-Sila”(Knowledge is Power) magazine covers from 1926-1940 juxtaposed to the American Sixties trash novel covers, suggesting to the viewer those symbols which alas seemed to be more viable in human history according to the suggestive- authors.

Questions and parallels come up naturally when browsing through the Soviet WWII poster collection and finding in the next issue old Indian film posters or the hellboy comic strips. The current belief in the malleability of humans is exemplified through the illustrations of the children’s Nazi-propaganda book “Der Giftpilz” (1938) which stands in stark contrast to the Soviet Children story by Nikolai Oleinikov: The Amazing Adventures Of Makar The Furious (in Russian) while not denying its purpose. (The Soviet children story is a true gem of the site, and i hope to be able to get hold of an English version soon, as the humour and peculiar world-views of the characters are too good to be missed. Otherwise this would be a good starting point to brush up some Russian.)

The Art production part offers among others an overview of an exhibition by Anna Kossovala showing contemporary Russian artists advertising or propagating contemporary art’s “usefulness” to every single man. Some suggestive content!