Marina Ignatushko. Author's voice without author

Author's voice without author
Marina Ignatushko

Date of publication: October 25, 2000

I have long accepted this: radio is for drivers and teenagers. And for sure - his advertising shout on the side of the tram, “What are you watching? You need to listen!”, is not addressed to me. But over the last year I have become as diligent a listener as possible - twice a week, while the “Voice of the Author” was heard on “Silver Rain”.

Sometimes the voices took on physical embodiment in the House of the Architect, where meetings between listeners and authors took place. The first person seen was Viktor Erofeev, the last was Tatyana Tolstaya. A piece of some text flashed through my head: “... Viktor Erofeev has enough Tolstoyan talent...”. This is how the radio listener’s “search system” now works, as if encoded in the 25th frame mode.

Of course, I guess no one coded anything. It’s just that if drivers and teenagers had the patience to listen to the end of “Voices” without changing the radio setting to another, more frivolous, wave, one day their “search engines” may reveal the names of Kulik, Peperstein, Sorokin, Osmolovsky, Khlebnikova, Pekarsky...

The “Voice of the Author” project was invented for Nizhny Novgorod. Our State Center for Contemporary Art "Caryatid" (Anna Gore, Lyubov Saprykina), among other important matters, systematically and enthusiastically engages in cultural enlightenment work in its most varied forms. The radio program was invented together with journalist Elena Pikunova, the Nizhny Novgorod “Silver Rain” provided the airwaves, and the Avtobank JSCB financed it. Since October, every week there has been a new author with his thoughts “about the problem of the author in the cultural system” (a line from the press release).

Lena Pikunova traveled to the capital for interviews, and some of those interviewed came to Nizhny. So it was very pleasant for a whole year to personify all sorts of concepts from collections and dictionaries - for example, “Rubinstein, Moscow Conceptualism. Looks like a hedgehog, which makes it cute.” Or a phrase from the same press releases - "...cult figures of the mainstream will appear..." - first came to life in the imagination: (wooden, probably?) idols emerge in a stormy stream. After the meetings - direct, live - there was a feeling of belonging, which is what the authors of the project were counting on.

What to do with this involvement now that the series is over? Live. “You become this text, you merge with this text, and there is such a strange state” (“voice” of Tatyana Tolstoy).

In general, listening to the radio is also a strange state. They don't hold you, but they lead you. A weak voice means you get tired of listening, the author’s efforts flow into your fatigue, which turns into irritation, which develops into excitement, and you can only deal with it with a book. An energetic voice quickly invigorates - but all centers at once, including those responsible for doubts. One thing is definitely good: “The narrower the channel of information, the more valuable it is.”

“The author has died. The author is no more,” a phrase from an article by Michel Foucault is literally perceived as the beginning of a detective story. This phrase served as the intro for the program “Voice of the Author.”

Then - through the rustle and influx of alien waves - the presenter's questions, separately recorded and therefore sounding strange, like a metronome: “How does the author feel at this time?.. How is popularity determined in general?.. What is an artist’s technology?..” . And then - a smooth flow in a cut suitable for broadcasting.

Sometimes there was a quiz at the end: listeners had to name the key word of the program. The winner received a book, sometimes with the author's autograph.

It turned out to be a Trojan horse on the territory of mass culture. Here's the intrigue: The author is dead, but the voice is heard. In several episodes - the search for truth in conditions of hard-to-grasp meaning. You won't get bored with this radio!

No, sometimes it was still boring. What do you want? Fifteen minutes later the program ended, and one could be left alone with the usual radio fun.

To be fair, it should be noted that the “voices” of the musicians sounded more organically on “Silver Rain”. Conversations about books (unread!), gestures, installations (unseen!) required more effort from listeners to understand. The form and structure of the program suggested: between all these different authors, their interests, there are some convergences (although there is, perhaps, no direct connection) - strange, but no more than a stream of consciousness.

"By and large, writers must be idiots - the same people who don't really know what they're doing."

“I am different everywhere, I am seen differently, and this often comes into conflict. And I like this, because it gives me the opportunity to escape fundamental petrification, to which the artist is pushed by the traditional idea of ​​​​his mission: he must become a human being, a lump.”

This does not mean at all that the effect of the 25th frame will work only for those who are able to guess the word “hypertext”. That’s why fellow journalists worked hard: they “highlighted” all the authors in dozens of publications and television stories.

“The main product will be what is done under the cranium.”

For those who are not from Nizhny Novgorod (who are over 30 and who do not have a car), there is a consolation: Elena Pikunova is going to release materials from the “Voice of the Author” programs in the form of a book. What to listen to? Must read!