AES+F

Madrid, Salvador Diaz Gallery, 2006
Moscow, Manezh Central Exhibition Hall,  Moscow House of Photography, The Sixth International Photobiennale , 2006
St. Petersburg, State Russian Museum, AES-AES+F, 2007

Executed in 2006, this work is from an edition of 5 plus 3 artists' proofs.

From the widely-heralded series Last Riot 2, Tondo No. 15 is exactly characteristic of the very best digital collages that AES+G have been perfecting for over ten years, since their groundbreaking keynote work AES - Witnesses the Future. Islamic Project (1996). Their working method involves photographing the main constituent elements of the work individually - the landscape and child models - before assembling the composition digitally and introducing graphically designed elements such as futuristic fortifications and exotic buildings. AES+F have explained that the children were photographed individually and digitally assembled into groups "specifically to achieve the effect of alienation, as though each character was imprisoned in his own invisible capsule" (cited in: "'A Brave New World' AES+F: Oleysya Turkina interviews AES+F Group", in Exhibition Catalogue, St Petersburg, The Ludwig Museum in the Russian Museum, AES: AES+F, 2006, p. 10). In the isolation of the studied model, Tondo No.15 is strongly reminiscent of classical academic painting and such exemplars as Nicolas Poussin's Massacre of the Innocents (c.1630) (FIG.1), which also stands as an important forbear in this brand of extreme but staged theatrical violence. In addition, the imagery of Tondo No.15 is vitally current and, like other works in the Last Riot 2 series, occupies a niche between computer gaming and Hollywood film extravaganzas.