Freedom is Freedom
- Artist
- Erik Bulatov
- Date
- 1997
This work is an AR reconstruction of Erik Bulatov’s painting Freedom is Freedom (1997). In Bulatov’s practice, slogan-like text taken from Soviet reality collides with figurative imagery, most often landscapes or pictures borrowed from mass print culture. This juxtaposition reveals, in a very direct and accessible way, the absurdity of a reality saturated with the symbols and language of Soviet propaganda.
In these works the boundary between the real and the represented, between life and art, begins to dissolve. Bulatov’s conceptual approach does not simply invite the viewer to look at an image, but to enter another space that the image creates.
The AR reconstruction translates this logic into augmented reality. When the viewer points the phone’s camera at the sky, an AR layer appears. In the original painting the sky is rendered in photorealistic painting; in the AR version it is replaced by the real sky above the viewer’s head. To activate the work, point the phone at the sky.
The screen plays a key role here. It becomes a threshold that lets the viewer step into another space within the same reality, temporarily leaving everyday perception and entering the conceptual space of the work.