Meredith Drum
R.R.M. (Revolving Red Monuments)
R.R.M. (Revolving Red Monuments) (2022–2026) is an ongoing co-created augmented reality app that allows users to temporarily adorn Communist monuments in Bulgaria with playful, provocative, and critical virtual sculptures. These sculptures were created in collaboration with eight Bulgarian artists.
While participants view the AR sculptures on their mobile device, they also hear one of a selection of poems about war. The app’s code itself includes elements of disruption: each time R.R.M. is opened, visuals and sounds are remixed, and the player’s ability to choose is deliberately frustrated.
This disruption acknowledges Russia’s brutal war against Bulgaria’s neighbor, as well as the systematic destruction of monuments and cultural sites important to Ukraine, which are being replaced with symbols celebrating Russian history.
While participants view the AR sculptures on their mobile device, they also hear one of a selection of poems about war. The app’s code itself includes elements of disruption: each time R.R.M. is opened, visuals and sounds are remixed, and the player’s ability to choose is deliberately frustrated.
This disruption acknowledges Russia’s brutal war against Bulgaria’s neighbor, as well as the systematic destruction of monuments and cultural sites important to Ukraine, which are being replaced with symbols celebrating Russian history.
Meredith Drum is a multimodal media artist who uses technology critically, rebelliously, and joyfully. Meredith employs emerging aesthetics and digital platforms to explore the forces that form, change, destroy, and repair more-than-human landscapes, sites, and ecosystems. The work has been supported by grants and residencies from CEC ArtsLink (Sofia, BG 2022), InLight 1708 Gallery (Richmond, VA 2022), Works on Water (Governors Island, NYC 2019), The Atlantic Center for the Arts (New Smyrna Beach, FL 2018), ChaNorth (Pine Plains, NY 2018), The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (NYC 2015 and 2013), iLand (NYC 2015), The Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY 2014), Wave Farm Transmission Arts (Acra, NY 2012), ISSUE Project Room (Brooklyn, NY 2010), The University of California Institute for Research in the Arts (Santa Barbara, CA 2010), The Bronx Museum of the Arts AIM (NYC 2009), the Experimental Television Center (Owego, NY 2008), and other institutions. Meredith’s projects have included several solo and two-person exhibitions and screenings, including at Microscope Gallery, NYC, in 2020, and have been part of numerous group exhibitions and screenings in the United States, Brazil, Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, France, Mexico, and Spain.