Moscow multimedia exhibition uncovers the role of the typewriter

200 Keystrokes per Minute, an exhibition devoted to exploring the typewriter as an object and the main tool for creating a literary text in the 20th century, opens today in Moscow.

The exhibition features typewriters from the Polytechnic Museum, artworks from the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA) and manuscripts from the State Literature Museum, as well as items from a total of over 20 museums and private collections. Among the most notable artefacts are typewriters that once belonged to Lev Tolstoy, Boris Pasternak, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and other celebrated Russian writers. Video and audio installations made specifically for the exhibition by filmmaker Boris Khlebnikov and artist Haim Sokol, among others, will accompany the artefacts.

In addition, a number of exhibits have been provided by Memorial International Society, exploring the persecution of independent artists during the Soviet era, while MMOMA’s special project One Within the Other links the exhibition back to the digital media-dependent modern world.

Curated by Anna Narinskaya, 200 Keystrokes per Minute brings together a research project into the role of the typewriter in Russian literature with contemporary art, allowing visitors to understand both how the typewriter was seen by its contemporaries and how artists today relate to it.

200 Keystrokes per Minute is presented by the Polytechnic Museum, Moscow Museum of Modern Art and the State Literature Museum. It opens to the public today and will run until 13 March 2016 at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. More information can be found on the exhibition’s website (in Russian).