ABSTRACT
This chapter surveys the observations on the socio-cultural situation in Russia made by the Agency of Singular Investigations (ASI), founded by Stanislav Shuripa and Anna Titova, on the basis of the research conducted when the Agency was founded, and September 2016. The ASI modus operandi combines various types of discourse and practices of appropriation with the reinterpretation of images and ideas, both mass-produced and one-off. Visual culture is animated by the energy of spectacle. Special effects have to be produced, timed, assembled and installed in specific places within a narrative. The work of the ASI, conversely, aims to devise a counterstrategy of the subversive dissolution of ideological messages. It should be thought of as a 'demontage' of attractions. The industry of attractions imbues today's public sphere with specific dynamics. Mainstream culture produces its phantasmagorias in order to convince the audience that beneath the pavement is not the beach but an abyss.
