The Motherboard
A web search of “parenthood + Web + computer games” in any language yields articles on how to protect your child and build a healthy boundary between them and the Web. But when children are separated from their parents by real borders—through a pandemic or other social and political disasters—the Web can become their space of freedom, their home, and a key opportunity to maintain the connection.
In 2020, when borders were closed, Masha and her son found themselves in different countries and started playing Minecraft online. They built houses, planted gardens, bred sheep and caught fish, staying together at a distance in the digital world. Masha noticed their relationship change in the process: new patterns of communication developed and they became closer on a different, more sincere and open level.
The Motherboard will be presented as an interactive archive and a Minecraft server hosting the world built by the authors of the project.
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Mascha Danzis
(b. 1972, Leningrad) is an interdisciplinary artist who works with video, experimental photography, and installation. She studied at the School of Art in Kassel and on the postgraduate program at Berlin University of the Arts. She has taught media and video art at St. Petersburg State University since 2016 and at the Higher School of Economics (Moscow) since 2021. She lives and works in St. Petersburg.