Man Lets Internet Users Vote on His Fate: Live or Die

Voting is part of an interactive performance titled “Ally/Enemy.”

From Dateline Zero – Oleg Mavromatti, a radical performance artist wanted by Russian authorities, is submitting both his case and his very life to the judgment of Internet voters. If the majority of participants find him guilty, he says an electric shock will be administered to stop his heart.

The case on which users are voting stems from a 2000 performance called “Do Not Believe Your Eyes.” In it, Mavromatti was “crucified,” with assistants seemingly driving nails through his hands. Shaved into the hair on his back was the phrase “I am not the son of god.” Mavromatti was charged under Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code with “inciting ethnic, racial or religious hostility.”

This Article 282 is a kind of “hate crime” law that is often use to silence artistic expression.

He left the country to avoid pretrial imprisonment, which he says would mean death for him, given his health problems and the nature of Russian prisons. After five years in New York, he moved to Sofia, where he has residency rights (his wife is Bulgarian). He says he cannot go anywhere because his passport has expired and embassy officials told him it could not be renewed because he is a fugitive from Russian justice. Russia is seeking to have him extradited.

Article 282 has been in the news before. Earlier this year, two high-profile curators were convicted under it for an art exhibit that included works seen as subverting religious articles. In 1999, Avdey Ter-Oganyan, a friend and colleague of Mavromatti, fled Russia after being charged under article 282 for a performance in which he publicly hacked Russian Orthodox icons to pieces.

“The goal of the performance is not to demand a passport, a visa, special consideration, pity, refuge, etc.,” the artist explained on his blog. “This project is pure sociology, if somewhat radical sociology. What matters to me is only to conduct a survey, as in an ordinary sociological experiment.” Continue reading, from the full article at Dateline Zero.