One song by the Eurovision contestant Tommy Cash saved my unfortunate squandering of 2 hours on that program. A Chinese understands the post-soviet cynicism combined with the emergence of consumerist frenzy more than anybody else. Well, the population from the former USSR probably also has that reminiscence, but who beats those who still live under that condition and see no possibility of an alternative chance?
Mass production and grand narrative are the combination that everyone wishes they could avoid, but some people unfortunately cannot, and the artistic consequence of that is irony, and irony only. Obscenity, violence, jokes, and indecencies are all ironic. Pretty butterflies and serene sunshine are never ironic. People from such conditions don’t deserve inherited metaphors. They must create new ones.
Jokes of course are destructive. The art of jokes is that it is never for sure to be destructive. They evoke two interpretative possibilities, or more, and audience form alliances according to their interpretations of one joke. This is almost as accurate as separating them by political opinions.
The ultimate symbolic joke is Gopnik. Three strips. Slavic squats. Who’s to say that is a parody for the Russians? Absurdity doesn’t belong to any one nation. It aims at every collection of individuals that hopes to upgrade something by destroying it.
United by music – is it possible? Sure, when we are replaced by machines, which subscribe unanimously to a set of good music by the law of the holy algorithms.