My grandmother doesn’t leave her small St Petersburg flat. The friends she used to visit; those she sat on park benches with, have all but passed. Some time ago, the television took the place of all her social connections, entertainment, information, and routine. Her son brings her a weekly TV guide which she meticulously marks with her favourite programmes which form her daily schedule. When I turned on my grandmother’s TV this August 2023, playing was the monumental soviet series Seventeen Moments of Spring. In 1973, Yuri Andropov (the then head of the KGB) commissioned this 12-part espionage series, intending to re-ignite interest in the work of the (KGB) agents by appealing to younger audiences through what was then the new and pervading medium of television. The plot follows seventeen days in the life of soviet spy, Max Otto von Stierlitz during the last weeks of spring before Germany surrendered in World War II. The Guardian reports up to eighty-million Russian citizens tuned in each evening to watch the story unfold on their screens. In 1991, Vladimir Putin commissioned a documentary about his life, titled, Power. The intent of the piece was for Putin to reveal his career as a spy in Germany. The documentary re-enacts visual tropes from Seventeen Moments of Spring; even using the series’ theme music to orchestrate the narrative. Once the public saw the documentary, many started associating Putin with the much-loved hero of Seventeen Moments of Spring. In 1999 the Kommersant magazine, (the biggest newspaper magazine in Russia) printed a portrait of the fictional character on its front cover. A headline over the image read “President–2000”, overlaying an idea of Stierlitz being an ideal candidate for the incoming 2000 presidential elections. “The pictures and sounds that obviously represent events are often more perfect than those which present them and therefore look "truer". […] An actor representing a politician often looks "truer" than the politician himself.” (Vilem Flusser, 1974) This documentary informs my project and interest in popular culture and truth claims of news in the media. The interlacing of politics and popular culture is the catalyst of my ongoing project. There are three thousand, three hundred television channels in Russia today; I am fascinated by the relationship between their collective force in relation to realism. Post Truth has become a ubiquitous term of the modern day; my work seeks to explore this condition and highlights the need for a global discussion around the influence of media in political discourses. I combine images of grandmother’s witnessing of television, contextual studies of her flat and television guide, with performative self-portraits re-enacting scenes from Seventeen Moments of Spring. Over the past six months, I have developed a unique method to produce contact prints on location from a live television screen. In August this year, I made immediate prints from my grandmother’s television screen in her apartment; these are interwoven into the narrative. I will make two final trips in 2024 to complete this work. My intent being, to vastly extend a set of self-portraits re-enacting Seventeen Moments of Spring, along with expanding my set of contact prints of my grandmother’s television to include the 2024 Russian presidential elections being held in March 2024. Image captions: Maria Quigley_TTTHM_1 The view out the window of Babushka’s tower block in St Petersburg, Russia. The evening falls and the people come home; lights emit from windows of surrounding flats; the television is turned on. August 2023. Maria Quigley_TTTHM _2 The television in the kitchen, April 2023. In 2024, I plan to make an additional set of contextual studies of my grandmothers flat. Maria Quigley_TTTHM _3 Babushka eating Smetana, (the Russian name for sour cream) whilst watching television. August 2023. Maria Quigley_TTTHM _4 Detail of my bedroom wall in my grandmothers flat, the sun sets outside; the gold light passes through her soviet lace curtains and dances over a digitally produced wall mural. April 2023. Maria Quigley_TTTHM _5 Photograph of Babushka’s TV guide on 14 August 2023. Seventeen Moments of Spring is due to play on Channel 1 at 22:00 on this day. Maria Quigley_TTTHM _6 TV Artefact #138 (Direct contact print of my grandmother’s television screen) Friday 27th August 2023 Time: 20:10 Channel: n/a (TV is turning on, capture of the start-up screen) Maria Quigley_TTTHM _7 A self-portrait re-enactment as Stierlitz from Seventeen Moments of Spring inside a German ‘Opel Super 6’ car from 1936 located in a shopping mall near St Petersburg. This is a car Stierlitz drives in the 1973 series. A green screen is used as a backdrop and intentionally kept in the image. August 2023. Maria Quigley_TTTHM _8 Babushka eats ice-cream and watches her evening shows as the light of another day dissipates. April 2023. Maria Quigley_TTTHM _9 TV Artefact #129 (Direct contact print of my grandmother’s television screen) Sunday 27th August 2023 Time: 20:15 Channel 1 Programme: Три аккорда (Three Cords) Maria Quigley_TTTHM _10 Self-portrait, created by projecting a live image of myself onto a television using a secondary camera. April 2023. Maria Quigley_TTTHM _11 TV Artefact #63 (Direct contact print of my grandmother’s television screen) Friday 25th August 2023 Time: 21:15 Channel: 1 Programme: время (Time) (News)