Fall from the cloud

In the art center "Factory", located in Pereshedyenovsky Lane, it is noisy: heating pipes are buzzing, heating thermal guns, buzzing something like a circular. However, not every resident of Moscow, accustomed to living in the area of ​​eternal repair and construction, will pay attention to this constant noise. Most people with sound have complex relationships. It is difficult to write about the sound, it’s hard to talk about sound, it’s hard to think about sound. It is difficult to even perceive some sound - they simply do not pay attention to it. Sergei Kasich, who looks younger than his 29 years, is not one of those. In the past, he is a sound engineer and arranger who worked at a commercial studio. Now - Sound Artist , sound artist, curator of events related to media art. Inside the buzzing “factory”, Kasich organized the first sound-airframer SA in Russia)))) _ Q- O , in the heart of which there is an exposition of spatial sound sculptures “against the background of noise”.

Before entering the exposition “against the background of noise”, you must change into slippers. In a darkened room, shielded from the white light of the “factory” with black paper sheets, 20 studio speakers were placed around the perimeter, illuminated by lamps: 16 monitors and 4 subwoofers stand with watercaps on the temple, staring at the listener with a non -extinguishing gaze of diffusers. In the center, where the lines of their imaginary views intersect, pillows who are waiting for visitors who are ready to perceive new experience are packed - turning off the rest of the senses, turn into ear.

“This is not music. It is better to call it architecture in the air. ”

This experience is not simple. In some ways, an extreme is akin. It is as if to fall from the cloud-so the journalists of 1919 described the reaction of the Berliners to the noise "antisymphony" of the Dadaist Efim Golyshev, who was the forerunner of modern sound artists. Sergey Kasich makes a couple of passes on the touchscreen, and after testing the sound signal, the new monitors - the German ADAM A8 , the French Focal , the Finnish Genelec and the Japanese Yamaha - begin to make sounds. Unusual, radical, discomfort. Sounds knock out the soil from under the feet, because the listener's brain does not recognize their nature and does not know what to correlate with them. And they go with a continuous dense wall - a drone. This is sound sculpture No. 1 made by Patrick K.-H. - media artist, participant in the virtual association Sound Artist.ru . He recorded sounds that were lying from speakers with a very sensitive microphone from the guitar, on which they played an electric mim. Listeners do not know anything about this. First, they experience unusual physical sensations, having entered the epicenter of a dense sound flow that comes from several sources. After a while, just as the pupil adapts to altered lighting and begins to see the contours of objects in the dark, the hearing begins to distinguish between something vaguely familiar to him in strange dissonant consonations. Unexpected acoustic illusions arise - for example, some listeners have a ringing of bells. Those who concentrated on listening, and did not run to the street or in their e -mail. Such cases are not uncommon-the sound sculpture of Patrick K.-h. It lasts half an hour so that the listener either accepts the conditions of the game or manage to leave it.

The program “against the background of the noise” consists of three parts-three sound sculptures made by three media artists, participants in the Sound Artist.ru association created by immigrants from the Termen Center -Patrick K.-H., Oleg Makarov and Dmitry :: vtol :: Morozov. These three sculptures demonstrate different approaches to working with sound and affect the listener differently. “Patrick’s work is a subtle work with recording and microphones. She introduces the audience into a state of perception, ”explains Sergey Kasich. - The work of Oleg Makarov is based on the generative method. The score in it is created by a computer program. Oleg Makarov to the maximum used the technical capabilities that our system provides - sound zoning, panoraming and dynamic effects. It most clearly shows what an unusual sound experience is. The sculpture of Dmitry Morozov, made by the spectral method, first enters into a dispute with the second part - begins with a bass drone, from which clothes tremble on a person, and then joins in a dialogue with classics. Morozov spectrally laid out on the channels one of Bach’s works and smeared it with a reverb, presenting historical Bakhov’s harmony in the interpretation for the new technological age. ” The finale of "against the backdrop of noise" is ironic. The listener is included in a calm audio reconnaissance with a goat bleation and other idyllic sounds of nature. This sound marker, soothingly acting on most people, reports that the journey into the unknown ended. You are at home again, in the center of the metropolis, where instead of goats and winds are the noise of construction and motorways.

What do people who returned from a trip in slippers feel? How do they react to what they heard? “The best reaction is when people begin to ask questions not in negative modality. When they understand that they lack information about the perceived, and try to somehow correct this situation, ”answers Sergey Kasich. - “Against the backdrop of noise” of many, he is at a standstill. People urgently need to put somewhere the experience they experienced-classify their experience. Otherwise, a person cannot perceive the music of what he heard - albeit radical and non -traditional. However, we immediately speak and insist that this is not music. It is better to call it architecture in the air, sound sculptures, objects of high -tech media art. But - and here again a logical impasse - they are presented in a very old listening format. ”

“Most people are not ready to perceive the sound separately - without text comments and visual support,” Oleg Makarov comes into conversation. -Therefore, contemporary art imposes programmage to the sound artist-when you serve a job, you need to write a page of the text in which you need to verbalize something. But at the same time, music is an extremely abstraction, and it has no direct attitude to the real world. Domenico Scarlatti wrote 400 symphonies and did not accompany any of them with the heading or explanations. It's just music. My works already have ideas, thoughts and feelings expressed in sound. Accept them as they are. ”

“We would like to completely get away from the verbalization of experience,” Sergey Kasich echoes colleague. - Sound is the most ancient media that allows you not to discuss it. People can just sit and perceive it. Sound Artist.ru - Technological Association. We believe that in the development of technology lies the path of avant -garde. We are for “overthrowing”. Now we are in the alpha version of the exposition. In the future, I would like to do without human accompaniment at all. Now I have to plant people in places, say some words and include installations. And ideally, I would like this - people go into the room, and the sound automatically starts. ”

"Contemporary art imposes programming to the sound artist."

“Alpha version of the sound-art-framework of SA)) _ Q-O ” is what happened at the “factory” from January 15 to 25 around the temple of 20 monitors. Sergey Kasich and his colleagues several times a day arranged listening “against the backdrop of noise”, in the evenings they held seminars and workshops related to sound art and sound technologies, and concerts of improvisational music. There were work sessions to create sound work for a multi -channel system for the whole night - with a morning demonstration of the result. “We showed that our site can function every day,” says Sergey Kasich. - Events can constantly occur here, moreover, it can partially pay off. The idea of ​​“sound art-framework” can be developed-it would be where. ” To create a sound system Soundartist. RU received a grant of the Ministry of Culture as an innovative project in the field of art. Sergei Kasich and his colleagues supported the Yekaterinburg Foundation "For Art!" and the Ural branch of the GTSIS. Two million rubles were spent on the purchase and arrangement of the system - in Russia its own Acousmonium appeared. "Factory" sheltered him for a while. Now Sergey Kasich and his Soundartist comrades. ru is looking for a permanent residence. Ideally, 100 squares and a utility room. Preferably free.

“I want SA)) _ Q-O become a permanent platform like what the Termen Center was,” says Sergey Kasich. - I sent requests to the HCCI, MMSI and the ZIL cultural center - they are not eager to cooperate. It seems that Moscow cultural institutions do not yet understand what we are and what is the sound art. Despite the fact that large exhibitions dedicated to the sound art were recently held in the UK and Germany. In MOMA , a constant exposition of sound art has opened. At the international level, it is already clear to everyone that this is a new direction in contemporary art. It is the area of ​​the mediaart, not the genre of experimental music. For us, the value of this project is obvious. It is understandable even for the Ministry of Culture, which is customary to represent the reactionary institution. I do not want to think that our appearance is a glue, just a mistake, a failure in the system that led to an unexpected result. ”

Sergei Kasich pauses and smiles: “On the other hand, the sound art is inextricably linked with glue aesthetics. This option also cannot be excluded. ”