MONEY ABOVE ALL

A text based video installation project as response to War and the unethical arms Industry economies

Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: Freedom for the slave owners.

Vladimir Lenin

Money Above All in Russian military and corporate aesthetics Gold text, utilizes the color codes and identity signifying medals, military colors, national colors of flags and vernacular, nostalgic history. The translation of GOLD GUIDES ME into an authentic Russian version of the meaning, took place during the first weeks of the invasion of Ukraine, in collaboration with an artist from Moldova in order to preserve the statements original meaning in context of linguistics and an immediate, authentic emotion to the invasion of Ukraine before any media distortion alters history.

The aesthetic of Russian version of GOLD GUIDES ME, takes on iconic and popular culture symbolism through the usage of color and gold. The ironic statement reflects today how the temporary confiscation of Oligarch lifestyle of Yachts, oil industry harvesting, human trafficking and luxury living, and has persisted in spite of the seemingly global response to the Russian enterprise, theatrics of the political arena, – in contrast, the invasion has become an international gold rush and an opportune gold mine for the global war and technology industry, where the market place is a giant gambling table with new temporary bedfellows alternating faster than you can say Njet, where peaceful countries have re-opened their repurposed WWII factories with updated production and technologies geared towards fast tracking the good old ammo production, or in some cases like the Swedish car manufacturer SAAB, who have now unveiled their hugely successful arms and security industry production that has been discretely conducting their business since the establishment of the company in 1945. SAAB is today one of the fastest rising arms production companies globally after a mainly US dominance in the defense business with corporations such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing Defense at the top, and dotted on the list are foreign companies spread between China, France, UK, Italy, Scandinavian countries and Russia. Sweden’s delay of their member ship to NATO defines new market opportunities for the previously social democratic friendly country. The victims of the corporate war manufacturing industry are as always the citizen: mothers, fathers, children, grandparents, the worker, neighbor, society as a whole save the capital machinery and corporate enterprise. The victims are humanity, ecology and environment, and our common future.

The Russian Text project consists of a selection of text based images, video works and not-for-sale NTF’s created by GGM Holdings and placed on the GGMH’s Opensea account which is a category of the CAPITALISM IN THE PUBLIC REALM project, and a contextualized market platform, based on the idea of a shell company.

MONEY ABOVE ALL – Russian Distortion no 06, 2023 by Anne Katrine Senstad. Video stills. 15 min loop. 1920×1080. Edition of 6.

The artworks created for the exhibition MAL EDUCACIÓN are supported by Office for Contemporary Art Norway and the Norwegian Government’s Grant for Artists/ Kulturdirektoratet Statens Kunstner Stipend for Etablerte Kunstnere.