MOCKUTECTURE

By STENOGRAFFIA

STENOGRAFFIA

In 2017, Yekaterinburg-based team SPEKTR began work on a large-scale, architectural series of artworks as part of Russia’s largest street art festival, STENOGRAFFIA. This new artistic direction has a name: mockutecture. This neologistic term was thought up by members of the SPEKTR team themselves, who created it partly as an analogy to the term “mockumentary”. 

Composition with nine prisms: overview (2017-07) by SPEKTRSTENOGRAFFIA

Fading Rhythm Fading Rhythm (2019-04) by SPEKTRSTENOGRAFFIA

Composition with nine prisms (2017-07) by SPEKTR TEAM, Andrey Kolokolov, Danila Shmelev, Andrey Toporov, Daria Melnikova, Konstantin Rakhmanov, Evgeny Fateev, Dmitry Chabanov, Anna Klets, and Oleg SkvortsovSTENOGRAFFIA

“These artworks are architectural illusions – anamorphoses inspired by Soviet architectural modernism. Imaginary architectural elements drawn on blank walls. These drawings do not appear as themselves, standing out against the backdrop of the wall, but rather disguise themselves as the wall itself, dissolving into and concealing themselves within their urban context," SPEKTR team member Andrey Kolokolov explains.

Composition with nine prisms:detail (2017-07) by SPEKTRSTENOGRAFFIA

Four planes at different angles (2017-09) by SPEKTR TEAM, Andrey Kolokolov, Evgeny Rudykh, Oleg Skvortsov, Konstantin Rakhmanov, Anna Klets, Daria Melnikova, Anna Sitnikova, and Taisiya SpirinaSTENOGRAFFIA

The project consists of two parts. The first is called Utopia. It includes a phase of creating architectural illusions in different parts of the world that appear utopian and futuristic. When we look at these artworks’ symbolic meaning, the series comes together as a certain reflection on the civilization that created them.

Group of Grey Banners (2018-06) by SPEKTR TEAM, Andrey Kolokolov, Alexander Galeshnikov, Taisia Spirina, Maxim Parfenov, Konstantin Rakhmanov, Darya Melnikova, Oleg Skvortsov, Dmitry Chabanov, and Evgeny FateevSTENOGRAFFIA

The second phase is called Dystopia; in this phase, the artworks begin to live for themselves, mimicking their urban environment and aging. They themselves become surfaces used for expression by others, in the form of graffiti, tags, buffs of these tags and graffiti, stick-on posters, and bad local authority paint-jobs. All of this life will likewise be transferred anamorphically from the necessary perspectives onto these virtual spaces.

Group of Grey Banners: detail (2018-06) by SPEKTRSTENOGRAFFIA

This series of artworks is a mockumenentary novella that speaks to its audience through the medium of architecture. Mockutecture is about the architectural dreams of a city – artwork that thinks of itself as the surface upon which it was rendered. Impudent illusions created out of light and shade.

Fading Rhythm Fading Rhythm (2019-04) by SPEKTRSTENOGRAFFIA

Fading Rhythm Fading Rhythm (2019-04) by SPEKTRSTENOGRAFFIA

Concrete Echo:overview (2019-08-07) by SPEKTRSTENOGRAFFIA

Concrete Echo (2019-08-07) by SPEKTRSTENOGRAFFIA

"Our street art is different in that most people do not notice it is there. Whenever that happens, it means that we have done a good job. When we first published photos of our work people were commenting on them and asking, 'Where’s the graffiti? All I can see is the wall.' I was personally told that one person had a false memory of spending their childhood travelling into the countryside past the Group of Grey Banners. This type of phantom memory is the truest success we can achieve," says Andrey Kolokolov (SPEKTR).

Credits: Story

STENOGRAFFIA TEAM

Anna Klets | Chief Coordinator
Ekaterina Kizun | Press Secretary
Irina Zavyalova | Project manager

Evgeny Fateev | Stenograffia Creator
Konstantin Rakhmanov | Stenograffia Supervisor
Andrey Kolokolov | Stenograffia Ideologist, Artist
Dmitry Chabanov | Executive Director


Taisia Spirina | Designer, Illustrator
Maxim Parfenov | Designer

Mikhail Kolokolov | Video effects wizard
Sergey Malakhov | Commercial Director
Anna Remizova | Accountant

S—A team wishes to thank guest photographers, video producers and an amazing team of volunteers who made STENOGRAFFIA possible.

Credits: All media
The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.
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