V.Efimov and A.Chernyshev
War and Peace
Interactive video installation. 2003

Our project is titled simply: War and Peace, or a Letter to Leo Tolstoy. We are referring to the wellknown example from the relativity theory showing that if a million monkeys were pointlessly striking the keys of typewriters, as a result one of these monkeys might type some meaningful text in a million years time. That will necessarily be some masterpiece of literature, like 'War and Peace' by Leo Tolstoy. Science has no objection to that.
The installation includes a computer video projection and a modified typewriter. On screen there's a monkey sitting at the typewriter: idle, scratching herself, eating banana and oranges, looking around, yawning... At the moment when the viewer taps any key of the typewriter, the monkey also starts typing. Whatever nonsense the viewer is typing, the monkey results in producing a thoughtful text. The 'War and Peace' by Leo Tolstoy.
The point of the installation is an idea of transforming the animal chaos into the harmony of the masterpiece, written with a quill.