Gelman - Bot

Perm media artist Sergei Teterin creates his own cybernetic universe. In it, for example, a meat grinder shows cinema, poems writes electronic embodiment of Pushkin, and Andy Warhol rises from non -existence in order to break off with Permians with SMS. During the "Living Perm" this universe will expand a little more. "Salt" Teterin explained - due to what.

“Marat is easy and pleasant to make a robot: Gelman thinks systematically.”

Photo: Ivan Kozlov / Salt

- What projects will you be at the Living Perm this year?
- This time I decided to participate in the literary section of the festival. It so coincided that I had long wanted to make a project for the Piotrovsky bookstore. As soon as I came there for the first time, I was fascinated by his atmosphere. In addition, I found there Sergei Panin - the old comrade in the literary association “squinted”, in which I was in the nineties. And I came up with the idea to create a certain device that would look appropriate in this store. For a work, it is not enough only that it is well done or made by an artist with a name - it should still be placed in the right place. This also plays a huge role. The “poeton”, which I am finishing to construct, is just such a device.

- And what is the “poeton”?
-Outwardly, this is such an archaic phone of a bossy species, in which the votes of Russian futurist poets are built in. Including the Perm futurist Vasily Kamensky, whom I recently discovered for myself. It seems to me that Kamensky in a couple of years can become very popular in the Perm Territory.

- Why exactly Kamensky? This is not to say that this name is in a hearing among the townspeople.
-In my opinion, he, like a Perm, who was born on Kama, lived in this city for forty years and sang him and Kama, as he could, nevertheless deserves memory. Another thing, now there is a certain reflection about Kamensky as one of the emblem of Soviet propaganda, but I think it will pass for several years, it will be forgotten. And Permians will recall that he is the only Perm floods, a friend of Mayakovsky and Burliuk. I am not saying that this person actually became the first aviator of the region. By the way, this same Permyak who invented the word "plane". Before Kamensky, these aircraft were called in the French manner - airplanes.

-Spiritic sessions expected with someone besides Kamensky?
- In the “poetophone” other voices will sound - the unique notes of Mayakovsky, Burliuk, twisted. By the way, the store administration went towards me - we will have the opportunity to muffle the light a little so that the ghost of Vasily Kamensky, playing harmonies and shouting inarticulate futuristic spells, flew right in the store over the heads of the audience. A peculiar game with sounds is the point of understanding, but you can enjoy the appearance of what is happening. Even during the “hooking” of the poeton in their place (in the store they promised to allocate a special regiment) spontaneous readings of the 1914 pentagonal futuristic book - “Tango with the cows” of Vasily Kamensky, I have a reprint copy.

Marat Helman and his cyber-imprisonment. The main thing is not external similarities, but what is inside.

Photo: Sergey Teterin

- That is, the "poeton" will find its permanent place in the city?
“I don’t know about this, after all, I am the author of the work.” Maybe I would like to bring him somewhere, for example, to the Lviv conference dedicated to David Burliuk in September. But on the other hand, if such a device should be somewhere in Perm, then why should it lie in my closet? Better to be available to the public at Piotrovsky.

- In addition to the “poeton”, you seem to construct the cybernetic embodiment of Marat Helman, with whom it will be possible to communicate?
- I can’t say that I am the author of this project. I was engaged in the reconstruction of what was done, although not without my idea, but still another artist. Ten years ago, the robot who “communicates” with people on the principle of the Bota program was built by the St. Petersburg artist Daniil Vasiliev. Once Helman got this work from him, she lay in his secret barns, and now the robot is brought to us specifically for the “Living Perm”-we are trying to put him on his feet. This turned out to be a difficult task - I had to change all the iron brains for him, teach him to re -“talk”, connect it to a wireless Internet, and so on. In general, the robot that appears in front of Perm is a thing with a ten -year history. On the one hand, he had to treat him carefully-after all, a whole work of art. But on the other hand, the terrible technique of the beginning of the two thousandth, the oblique first pentiums, had something to do with this. And we did not stand on ceremony.

-Ten years ago, when the first robot was created, did he have the soul of someone else? Not Helman?
- No, then it was Helman too. Now its principle is the same, only it is much more developed - I inserted him with Bota Warhol Bota in size (I also had such a project - with the help of SMS people could “correspond” with Warhol), but now this is a real Helman bot.

- The robotic gelman also will not linger in its place after the festival?
- The robot will stand in the museum constantly. He is still a child, he will grow and study here. Its task is to stand near the entrance to the museum and on behalf of the founder of the museum to talk about what is happening here, where the toilet is located, what exhibitions are held here, what views on art, and so on.

- Why did Marat Gelman get the cybernetic body?
- Ten years ago, when the first robot was created, I sincerely admired Helman's judgments associated with modern culture. In the training of that robot at the beginning of the century, I also took part. Then I took up his training, believing that this, among other things, was a good case to find out the thoughts and ideas of Helman, which seemed very interesting and paradoxical, especially for that time. Then I already noticed that few of the gallerists and curators have clear ideas about art, about their place in this art and, most importantly, about what needs to be done to “get into the future”. Helmann always had such performances - and always laid out on shelves and brilliantly systematized. Therefore, it is easy and pleasant to make a robot from Marat: he thinks “systematically”. And what robot can be made, for example, from the average Perm art manager, from the Union of Artists or from somewhere else? The robot is hardly good and interesting reasoning about contemporary art. And robots love systematicity so that everything is clear. In this sense, it is pleasant to work with the cybernetic Marat. As with Warhol.