Trash the Narrative

This AR intervention is located at the main entrance of the RIA Novosti building in Moscow. The institutions in this building produce and distribute state narratives through television, news agencies and digital platforms. The media complex is directly connected to state TV channels, including Channel One, which play a key role in shaping and broadcasting the official political agenda.

The intervention responds directly to this information context. In the AR scene, a simplified human figure throws the letter “Z” into a trash bin placed at the entrance of the building. The letter “Z” became a widely used symbol of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and was then built into state propaganda, media messaging and public displays of support for the war.

By placing the gesture of throwing away this symbol at the threshold of a major state media institution, the work creates a symbolic reversal of the narratives produced inside the building. The gesture can be read as a rejection of propaganda and as an imagined cleansing of public space from its symbols.

The work exists only in augmented reality and can be seen through the screen of a mobile device. Installed digitally at the entrance of the building, it lets an alternative statement appear in a place where such an expression could not physically exist.