Views the history of Russian contemporary art through a distinctly Russian lens, a 'communal optic' that registers the influence of such characteristically Russian phenomena as communal living, communal perception, and communal speech practices. This title argues that socialist realism does not work without communal perception.
Develops the notion of dreamworld as both a poetic description of a collective mental state and an analytical concept. Stressing the similarites between East/West and using the end of the Cold War as its point of departure, the book examines both extremes of mass utopia, dreamworld and catastrophe.