before it’s gone save_
OKNO public01
24-26 may 2006 Page 2 beauty in the age of digital art save_ 24 May 2006
google beauty out c’mon, we are technological artists and we cannot escape it
Page 4 transdiscilinary practices save_ 24 May 2006 transdisciplinary practices
show it in its functional minimum
Dusan: For the games you have this manual Dusan: For instance if somebody would how to play them and for the net how to use ask you to teach? it and where to click and lot of your works Dirk: If it’s in an art school yes.. for instance look as you’re avoiding these Dusan: Because often these workshops manuals, go against them. That you don’t are about the technologies here and we really play it or use it, but misuse it. Then want to show how to manipulate it or you have Adorno’s idea that perception can how to use it and sometimes it‘s faster be activity. And then it’s like you are even than he or she had to get to it alone. So against this statement. lot of these things departed from the art Dirk: Yeah, I don’t like that media or any kind scene and ended up or are continuing at of new media develop a theory of them- the educational level. selves. As if I will not be because we try Dirk: Yes it’s true. Like Cory Archangel, not to read it or look at it, because I think the game modifier, Mario modifier, is also it’s like in all the art it is about my expres- teaching now and also gives workshops sion, my art, or our group. Anything media because he has to survive in New York. tries for its own explanations, like all these And here in Europe on the other side type of festivals like this are actually more a there are the funds, the subsidies, it’s a warning for me as an artist to take care that cliche, but it’s true, you can apply for an don’t ever become like that, because it’s so art funding. In America you have to sur- general, everything can be replaced by some- vive, if you get teaching, you do that.. thing else and you won’t notice it. I want to feel a personality of the maker, of the person Dusan: So are you able to live from the in between this group that has a vision that artworks you did? will be real or strong. It is also very political Dirk: No. We have been able to get the because in many countries new media get funds than you give the review, you money just by saying we’re going to develop show what you have done in the last a project that is new media so there can be year or two years and then they think workshops on the site.. because the com- well was this interesting, they have pub- puter is the most powerful economical tool. lic presentations.. it’s another control of So they will sponsor a lot of art including keeping art in society. It’s another way. computers, networks and digital art because The other way is to see what you can it will help functionality. It’s not so clean. distribute via galleries, and what public will want to give in return, as money or whatever, an the other is more abstract funding. Like for example there has been a time they have tried to revive or help film, the alternative film, everyone know you cannot make films.. so you have to apply to the commission.
Dusan: So it’s like you have not this free will in what you do and you have to fol- low this political rules. Printed 25 May 2006 Dirk: No. Yeah. Page 7 interview with Dirk Paesmans save_ 24 May 2006
Dusan: Yeah, anyway. What was the decision it makes sound and talalla, they think behind My Desktop work? it’s great. It’s like a ball is not made for Dirk: Well, it’s me, and someone else, doing playing football only you can also just strange things on the desktop, like multiply- play with it on the walls, I mean it’s not ing folders hundreds of times and then totally just to be played eleven players against random behavior, opening files, popping up, eleven players. hundred of times and so on, it’s like taking an instrument and start playing on it without Dusan: Do you also work with no com- any score. The desktop itself, you know, it puters? makes funny, when you a Mac desktop, but Dirk: What is it? Old computers, you also PC I guess that you open a folder and mean? pheeeew, chick tchik, tak taks, all these little Dusan: I mean if you do anything where actions they make certain noises, so when you don’t use computers. you multiply multiply it hundred times, tchick Dirk: A, yeah. We also did this thing tchak lililing, chku, it’s like a machinery that with GPS, but GPS is another type of went crazy, so you play on the desktop, on computer. You record it, but later you the interface only. have to have the software to visualize it I pectacle, actually that this is it, there is a and things like that, it’s all again on the bit... there is already so much happening on computer. But that is the problem of the the desktop, in the frame and around it, that computer, you edit video on the com- the rest is almost a byproduct. That was a puter, you can watch TV, you can write recording of this type. letters, you watch photos.. Everything We’ve made a software before OSS software is there, it has absorbed all analogue which is a software which does strange existing things into some kind of miniatur things with your computer and which actu- appearance, which more or less works ally makes the user react a bit in panic. and but only inside the computer. You can then many times without neccessary with telephone via the computer to Prague, in- this ... This is black and it’s flickering, shit! stead of ... Yeah, it can absorb so many I have to remove this! and then he starts things it’s amazing, but scary also. removing and the there is a double under it and then he sees, oh shit, there are twenty of them, and then they start doing nervous things and then they, yes, it’s more a drama that they imagine, it’s not so bad, they only react.
Magde: I wonder what is the relationship between this and hacking. Dirk: Hacking is more technical in general, hacking is almost the opposite but it’s good also that it’s.. Magde: When you get to someone’s com- puter and it starts doing things he doesn’t expect or it could be done this kind of way... Dirk: But then you have the ways when you do it in a very technically advanced way that you create a friendly virus, then you have to do it very constructive. And you demon- strate so bad amateur behaviour that it al- most has the same effect, I mean you can’t imagine that someone is doing something so stupid or so different from the normal rules. For example multiplying folders, opening them at the same time, then throwing them to the trashcan and trying to delete it. A vi- rus would do it a really advanced virus could do it, but you could also do it yourself when you were in the state of a five year old, let’s say, a five year old child for example Printed .. would do it for fun, because it would like it, Page 8 interview with Dirk Paesmans save_ 24 May 2006
Dusan: The thing is that this is still not really from. The flat screen originally was a TV, in try to DVD go crazy, then you need other the big topic for the artists, or maybe it is, and the beginning, people connected the comput- people who have been starting to do I’m just not aware of it? er to the TV. There was no hard disk or con- something with it, you contact them and Magde: When you look at for example Slovak tainer for the program, there were ttuutuutt, ask how is it.. You have to collaborate contemporary art scene, there are people who audio cassettes, so it was archeology. We many times for something new, because make videos and they use computer just for had like ten or twelve of them and it looked you don’t have a total knowledge of this. editing and that’s it. like a big piece of hardware, because we Many times when the program is fully Dusan: Yes, maybe it’s also connected, I’m thought we wanted to show the hardware there it means that people who put the wondering if you exhibit? side of things, not slick digital software, the program there did already so many things Dirk: Yeah. software program, but we wanted to show with it that when you use it, they will Dusan: Now? that hardware as its typical influences. And recognize immediately that that’s been Dirk: Yeah, we thought it could be a good we wanted to create a program with this, but done before. Experimentation is the best change of habits, yes, in the last three or four we couldn’t solve it, because most of these collaboration. years, we did maybe, by now we did ten or computers now are gone, no one kept it or twelve exhibits. I try to keep that small. archived it. It’s a bit unfortunate because Dusan: Lot of the people who do the But at least half of them were really bad, really the whole retro style is so big now and it’s performances, the audience is there and bad and then some of them were good. And so big because now it’s presented in flat there is an interaction during the thing sometimes it’s a pity that a good exhibit, that screens and several little iMacs connected to itself. Is this appealing to you? you learn how you see something and you it, totally unrelated to the problems or origins Dirk: Depends how, but in general the can’t repeat it or keep it. of whether we try to say something about laptop performances, I don’t find them Dusan: So what do you see as good exhibition? the machine or the computer. You look too very interesting, there’s too much copies, Dirk: Good exhibit was when we showed the much on graphics only, you’re trying to sell a lot the same, there are few originals. one in Eyebeam in New York, because there we stuff, graphics only is much more sellable, if It’s because the choice of the program showed the desktop things I told as really big it’s on flat screen or on painting. is again so limited, there are one or two projections. So the place was already big but Dusan: Most things you do is presented as programs to create rhythm or beat with the small.. What you normally see as a small jodi made this, jodi made that, do you also the graphics and so on. That is another desktop was gigantic, I mean big as you would collaborate with other artists? danger of the group, to be part of the see real in a presentation they put a the proto Dirk: Yeah, we did a few, actually. We like it. of the desktop. Desktop is always the layer, But that’s strange, that was typical for the where they put the browser on, or you start beginning years, there were all the time the Quake, or you start something, there the whole collaborations, for fun. Almost like a blog in action is only in the layer you normally don’t a way that via email I said next week I will see. You see it all the time, but in the back- open something strange on my website, but ground since you are doing something, writing I need some things from other people, you and you and you, and make something. And an email, or.... so this time, the desktop was then it was a little bit announced on the the main actor. And yes, you think of files mailing lists, these small little projects were and folders as small things, there they were happening a lot. That stopped a lot with huge objects flying around and making quack, that group of people, but I see that people the sound was really loud and all this was from the other generation collaborate all the very exaggerated, caricature. It was really like time, blogs, etc. I think it’s important to be that. It was really this exhibit and at the same aware of the group because many times you time, because it was not the only thing, we use tools which were made by other people, had a setup of very old fragile computers in like if you want to hack a game or make retro style, if you want, we recreated with, we a modification probably, that’s unofficial, bought old televisions, really old, the opposite amateur program from Czech Republic, or of flat screens if you want, mechanical, with Canada, from someone who was just a bed- knobs to change the channels, because that room, a home developer of these things. It’s were the televisions of the eighties and we had good to be aware of that, of another. That .... as a very strange little black computer is still happening, that people are aware, for and then the programs were on the casssettes example now you want to hack a DVD, or - audiotapes. So this whole thing is not totally a computer - there was no typical screen and there was no hard disk. They used music, so the computers did not exist yet. The keyboard with chip existence, not a totally packaged total thing, you could see where these things come Page 9 interview with Dirk Paesmans save_ 24 May 2006
group, you have to follow the rules a little bit, Dusan: Lot of the people who do the perfor- start to read them, most of the time they this is about abstraction, and pure and reac- mances, the audience is there and there is an were not ascii drawings, they were ascii tions to very electronic music, and you make interaction during the thing itself. Is this ap- texts. I did hundreds of them, a lot a lot a suddenly little puppets dancing around that are pealing to you? lot. I also tried to do it in the serious mailing not part of that group. With VJ-ing and laptop Dirk: Depends how, but in general the laptop lists. That time rhizome, I bombarded it. concerts it’s very much repetition. performances, I don’t find them very interest- Dusan: Then they kicked you out. Dusan: Then you have also these networked ing, there’s too much copies, a lot the same, Dirk: Yeah, after a while. It brings up many performances when the people are connected there are few originals. It’s because the choice times a discussion, like this is really interest- through the net, make a synthesis or have also of the program is again so limited, there are ing stuff, we should address it or this is input from the environment. one or two programs to create rhythm or beat spam. Dirk: Yes, it depends, it is difficult to recognize, with the graphics and so on. That is another you know, I try to look which is original. Visu- danger of the group, to be part of the group, ally you can almost not recognize it, because you have to follow the rules a little bit, this is someone can do similar thing very fast just about abstraction, and pure and reactions to because he saw it a week ago in London and very electronic music, and you make suddenly then he repeats it at home. I’m really interested little puppets dancing around that are not part in the person who makes it more than in the of that group. With VJ-ing and laptop concerts graphics only, like who is this girl or what did it’s very much repetition. you do before and why? And maybe she is not Dusan: Then you have also these networked standard, not a repetition, but anyway.. performances when the people are connected Dusan: During the years you have the ex- through the net, make a synthe sis or perience of perceiving the images, then you have also input from the environment. develop the ability to see like this is the original Dirk: Yes, it depends, it is difficult to recognize, combination of the things, then you start to you know, I try to look which is original. Visu- think how it could be made or you ask how it ally you can almost not recognize it, because was built and it might be useful for you. someone can do similar thing very fast just Dirk: Yes, it’s not forbidden to study the tech- because he saw it a week ago in London and nique of something.. then he repeats it at home. I’m really interested in the person who makes it more than in the graphics only, like who is this girl or what did you do before and why? And maybe she is not standard, not a repetition, but anyway.. Dusan: During the years you have the ex- perience of perceiving the images, then you develop the ability to see like this is the original combination of the things, then you start to think how it could be made or you ask how it was built and it might be useful for you. Dirk: Yes, it’s not forbidden to study the tech- nique of something..
Dusan: I don’t know if I ever found anything that you or Joan wrote about your works. Dirk: No, not much :) Dusan: That’s also part of this, then these works are appealing to people because they don’t know really a lot about them. Dirk: That’s another danger, that they write a lot of stuff on top of it. And if we are not doing that, that‘s not really a conscious choice. We, I especially, did a lot of writing and mailing into mailing lists, but that was all unreadable stuff. Sometimes cut and paste from the text and with a lot of graphic stuff in between. Sometimes they looked that as if you would Page 10 interview with Maja Kuzmanovic save_ 24 May 2006 maja kuzmanovic, foam
Dusan: Why did you choose the subject lot of these topics related to aes- of beauty? thetics were discussed three or four hundred years ago. There is this ap- Maja: We were busy designing the proach to taking it as a progress in magazine x-med-a with other three thinking and it might even look that organizations and it was actually the the topic of aesthetics is sort of out first time that we worked with the of the date. different organizations having to agree on the aesthetics. And it seemed like Maja: There was something we also people couldn’t actually talk about it as wanted to see. Maybe it is. At the easily as they can talk about concept same time I think we should pass or the structure of something. People this modernist idea that we should were offended very quickly or were have progress in everything. Even in talking in a very opinionated and strong the modernism they were still going language. And we thought actually in back to things in the past though, all these new media conferences in the so what we responded was – sure, past years there is not much talk about it’s an old idea, but it is an univer- aesthetics. So maybe we actually lost sal idea that keeps appearing no the ability to talk about it. I didn’t think matter where and when. But at the so because in our organization we talk same time if you talk to Guy van about it all the time. Belle who is really not so concerned with it, he still has a lot of opin- Dusan: So now we talking about the x- ions about it. There is this tension med-a publication. It worked out finally. between people, for example Michael Samyn who thinks that after the Maja: Through lot of talking. At the be- 19th century beauty has died, he’s ginning they did not want to say what very depressed about it, so having they like, they did not want to give him and Guy at the same table was examples because of something and it interesting. took big effort to get people say ‘i re- Dusan: The point of Dirk Paesmans ally really like this’ or ‘i really hate this’ was that beauty is always already and show us things that they like. We there, which was basically the same were there to try to stretch this maga- as Michael’s, but at the same time zine inbetween all these people’s ideas they were not able to agree on the because there was something ultramod- things. ernist like ‘i want concrete and steel and blocks of colors’ and so on. Dusan: So you came out of the point that it’s hard to speak about, so let’s speak about it. The guy from the audi- ence came out with few points that a Page 11 interview with Maja Kuzmanovic save_ 24 May 2006
Maja: I do agree that it is always already gone. People still talk about the same there, it’s just that we don’t really see things but it seems it is becoming the it anymore. It’s more likely that we look closed circle. So what we are trying to at the things that are problematic in the do with FoAM is to break this open into world. different fields. But still we are excited about digital technologies and it is what Dusan: Do you understand your and we do and use and make, but we want FoAM’s activities as being part of this to break it open. media art field? In art history it looks like media art is hot new, just 3 or 4 decades old thing to focus on, but at the same time you are saying that progress doesn’t work anymore..
Maja: I started to work in media art in the beginning of the 90s when we were all extremely excited about the possibili- ties of the technology and we were also thinking that we are going to save the world. But since a few years it just seems that it became kind of elitist group of peo- ple who don’t really communicate with the outside world. In the beginning of this internet thing it was about ‘yes, we’re going to spread out through it again’, because in the 60s and 70s with all this conceptual stuff it became very secluded. And now it seems that the same thing is happening at least in Belgium and at the festivals and conferences that i’ve been to in the past years. This enthusiasm is Page 12 media art in eastern and central europe save_ 25 May 2006 media art in eastern and central europe
why not to introduce artistic practices to the realm of the military?
Rebecca: Would you like to situate yourself in nicology which contained psychology, sociol- the vast field of Media Art to begin with? ogy and this kind of things. So I got very early in contact with writings of Marshal Mc Luhan, Darko: In 1988 I started working together Roland Barthes etc. My end paper was about with a group of friends, coming from different ‘the application of mass media in architecture’. artistic backgrounds, on computer installations I cited Andy Warhol and the idea of reproduc- without really knowing what we were busy tion etc., Conceptual Art and Video Art. with. At that time there was a strong tradition of video art. Then, through experimenting, we Then I went to Amsterdam to the Rijksacad- found out that there also was a strong tradition emie voor Beeldende Kunsten to the Media of computer art that had been completely inter- Department and was happy to find it very rupted between 1960 and 1980. Computer art prosperous. It was to my knowledge the only and video art were then completely separate art school in Europe that had one at that time. fields. Worldwide the computer art scene has Finally a place that was busy with what I was been rigorously cut down due to anti-techno- doing. The approach of the Media Depart- logical statements rising in the generation of ment included everything but traditional media.
the sixties late seventies, as a response to the Installations, Photo, video, one little computer Vietnam War. Those fifteen years of ‘amnesia’ work but nothing really in that way yet. But in the history of computer art had the effect that rapidly changed from the beginning of that everything that had been achieved in the the nineties until now. Now its video editing field had been forgotten. It’s like having for- all over, then it was only one little computer gotten what has been done in 1991. work. Every Academy has got a Media section nowadays. In the beginning of the seventies there was a strong video scene in Croatia and since this Rebecca: It is surprising to see how your use of area was part of former Yugoslavia it was a the computer gets translated into your work. In very free art. This in contradiction to many the works ‘204_ no content’ and ‘302_moved other East European countries, where this was temporarily’ you create a complex paradox quite a different story. between organic and inorganic elements. You apply an inorganic element, a error message So, when we were doing these computer in- in internet communication to an organic shape stallations in 1988, factories produced special since you plant the text with flowers. chips for us, we borrowed from an artist, Vladi- mir Petec, a slide projector that we then con- Since ‘302_moved temporarily’ is stretched nected to the media signal that we controlled. over 40 meters you need to get into a machine, It was kind of asking other colleagues for help. the privileged position of a helicopter, to get an Multivision, Extended Cinema, Video art and overview of the text. Overview in public space Conceptual Art were present in this time. But is a very closely linked with surveillance. How Media Art in that time meant Video Art and not would you define the political dimension of this Computer Art. work?
Rebecca: What is your personal background? Darko: This particular work is a site specific work. You are right about the fact that the Darko: I studied architecture and I consciously passer by cannot see the work fully, although decided not to study on a art academy. When it is situated in a public space. That’s con- I was young, eighteen about I studied commu- sciously made. The site lies on the entrance Page 16 interview with Darko Fritz save_ 25 May 2006
or exit point of New Zagreb. The roads Rebecca: So like the work we talked connect to the airport and the railway. about before it is also a proposition The site is on the middle of this crossroad to create like a void or a silence or an and is aligned with one of the street axes. empty formula in the city that allows Croatia is essentially a country of transi- people to think about their identity… tion where capitalism rules in the worst possible sense. The culture of commercial Darko: Yes, visitors can fill in their own billboards, their omnipresence, and their interpretation. If someone asks me cry for attention is counterbalanced with -what does ‘302_ moved temporarily’ my work. It is much bigger in size than mean- I say, sorry, nothing. It’s an error the billboards but is flat on the ground. message…My work cannot be defined It doesn’t correspond in content to the as a target, like they do it in marketing. billboards but is a formal incision in the Target-zone, simple and clear messag- urban texture. es… I am not using that sort of strat- egy. My work is more like internet art of Rebecca: But what you ‘advertise’ in your today. It doesn’t necessarily happen on silent ‘billboard’ is a failure message of the net anymore. communication...is it a criticism on real communication in society? Rebecca: It is nice to see how you man- age to transpose a content of comput- Darko: In Home_ Search_ Home I used ing into our everyday space without the home icon from Netscape navigator recurring to a machine. browser. There I used this very universal pictogram that means ‘home’ on the me- Darko: Yes, quite often there is this dium of the billboard. The billboard stands ‘problem’ with interactive media art. next to a road. According of fraction of There is often the illusion of interactiv- light the pictogram is more or less visible. ity. If you look closely at those ‘open There is no further explanation to it. So, systems’ they are really not that open it’s really very open for interpretation. because they are just parameters But that is of course a very risky way of that you can plug in and combinatory making art in public space. The content is systems that give you the illusion of ,advertising itself. freedom as well as political systems do. Page 17 interview with Darko Fritz save_ 25 May 2006
Rebecca: The beginning of the web was Rebecca: I still have a question about based on a military invention. If you as an your relation to the artist book in East- artist use those commands again, don’t ern Europe and Russia. There was a you revitalize this way of thinking? How form of illegal private publishing known do you subvert it? under the term of ‘Samizdat’. The book form was then used as radical tool to Darko: It has to be said that most tech- subvert the political and artistic agenda nology is made for military purposes. In of the regime. With the graphical ap- the USA academic military and corporate proach you have in your work do you in structures merge for that purpose. Fortu- any form link to this phenomenon? And nately, in Europe it’s quite a bit a different does Media Art have this same kind of story. As a media artist you always deal revolutionary potential as Book Art had with technology that came, after having then? been secret knowledge, into the public domain. But the question you asked is a Darko: ….My very first works was question that every media artist has to actually Copy Art. I used slide projec- solve. I am using this metaphor what con- tions that I copied, so the Xerox was cerns myself. It’s basically like adopting a my first tool to fabricate collages based child from a very, very evil family… on cut- copy- paste, appropriation of materials like quotations, use of typog- Rebecca: What is the social impact of raphy. So, with based on that I made your work? fanzines, ‘ Samizdat´. I made one book in an edition of seven and distributed it Darko: No art can escape the political to people I learned something from. So dimension…. The problem of Media art ‘ Samizdat´ is a great form and I think is that it is marginalized in reference to internet covers that function now, and contemporary art. Although everyone that’s great…Self-publishing is an issue will focus on conferences on their merg- that stands at the very beginning of the ing points, in reality they are separated discussion around electronic media. circuits. The fundraising system, the gal- leries, the critics… it’s a big gap. Artist appropriated this concept in the The mission for my own work that I put seventies in the Artist Book using text myself a long time ago is the very utopist and copying as well. It triggered off mission of filling this gap. I get lots of other approaches like Mail Art and Fax problems that way because for Media art Art and so on….Actually it touched my work is too traditional and for contem- everything that tried to make the old porary art my work is too technical… so medium of paper transgress into the .that’s that… electronic medium of the Internet… Page 18 interview with Andreï Smirnov save_ 25 May 2006 andreï smirnov, theremin centre
Pre-interview for the interview with Magde: When I watched you doing your presentation I was wondering how you actu- Andrei Smirnov with Guy Van Belle ally started working with theremin and the
Theremin Centre. What was the path that led Magde: I’m curious what do you think is the you to music, but also this very technical and best question for Andrei Smirnov? scientific way of doing it. Guy: Andrei, how the hell did you get there? Andrei: Yeah, that’s easy somehow. I think that as far as I remember, I started to build my first Magde: There.. electronic music devices in the age of fourteen. So since fourteen I was doing this stuff and Guy: Theremin Centre. It’s a strange story, approximately when I was a second year stu- it’s a good story. He used to work for this dent at the Moscow Institute of Physics and space museum in Moscow. That’s great. Technology, my specialisation was solid state And he worked with the brainwaves before. physics and laser and anything that relates to So it’s like a really cool question. the subject. And I decided in a while to get rid of this specialisation and to start to look Magde: OK, thanks. at the electronic music, but in Russia it was almost impossible, because you couldn’t do it professionally in this area. You couldn’t get any education in the contemporary music, specially in the electro-acoustic music, so it was some- how a self-taught way. I had to explore a lot of literature and libraries and read a lot of things.
Magde: But than there was no internet, so was this literature available in Moscow?
Andrei: Strange, but yes. I think that my first book I found it in the autumn 1975, it was a book by Max Matthews. I don’t remember now the actual name of the book but it’s his main book on the computer music, he wrote in the sixties, about his musical program and so I started that and then I found a little magazines in the libraries, mostly American - Journal of Acoustical Society, Acoustical Engineering Society also, a lot of them were discussing this Page 19 interview with Andreï Smirnov save_ 25 May 2006
topic. Somehow a had a huge labour at Magde: How is it now, it is not a state that time, articles, articles, articles, some- institution? how sharing them.. Andrei: It was a private non-profit Magde: So you continued studying and organisation. I did it officially as soon then you ended up directly in the Ther- as in Russia this law about non -profit emin Centre or you were doing something organisation was accepted. It was ap- different? proximately in 1993, or 1994. So I im- mediately created this Theremin Centre. Andrei: No, I had this idea to make a stu- But now, the situation is completely dio, but not for myself but somehow to opposite, because now the state is collaborate with other musicians, just to trying to get rid of the all these non- make it obvious, i saw this program every- profit organisations they develop new where, people building their own studios law which will really I think give them and spending lot of efforts and money possibility to close in a while all the and finally they get the studio, but to get organisations which are not really good the studio, they just lose their creative from the point of view of their political potential somehow. So I wanted to make ambitions. Since 1999 I started to con- a studio for creative people, to combine nect the Theremin Centre to the Mos- facilities, each musician has something, cow conservatory and now it’s a part so we can combine and make a separate of Moscow conservatory. The name community, so that was the initial idea Theremin Centre since last december of the Theremin Centre. To make a studio became official name of a department for experimental musicians who want to of Moscow conservatory. I think it is collaborate and develop something which good, at least I can be more sure it will is not possible when you’re alone. stay.
Magde: All these other people, they were Magde: Yes, I see. So it’s very much also in a similar situation, that they were connected with the politics. In Slovakia not able to get education in the contem- is maybe more about the opinion of the porary music, so they were more into the public, I mean.. technical field? Andrei: In Russia it means nothing. Because virtually... I really, I had a very Andrei: First they went abroad, some- big shock in the 1999, when there were time approximately in the 1990 or 1989, elections, and then I found out, I think because before that for me and many very bad about the Russian society, the many young people it was just impos- Russian citizens, because I immediately sible to get an international passport to understood that the percentage like 5 get abroad. So in Russia we couldn’t get percents of people somehow are think- that education, the Soviets offered just no ing probably the same way as me but education. It’s just great there! Very very the rest, it looks like has a completely classical, in conservatory you can learn different way of thinking, but OK... so. how to write music of the nineteenth I mean that’s not political question. But century, but you won’t have any idea somehow I think the situation in Russia about Stockhausen, or Boulez. You know is really not good especially for any them, but nobody really teaches you how sorts of arts or music. It’s still not obvi- to compose contemporary music on one ous but I’m sure that if it will continue hand, on the other hand, electro-acoustic like this, in several years we’ll have a re- music is just not existing. So the Ther- ally strange situation because all these emin Centre was some sort of exception. non-profit will just go down. It’s still an exception. Page 20 interview with Andreï Smirnov save_ 25 May 2006
Magde: Because they don’t have the state Magde: And I though that bureaucracy support, or why? in Slovakia is on the top level.
Andrei: The state support is really like, Andrei: No, Russian bureaucracy is... it’s not an anecdote, it’s the known story No bureaucracy can really attain the about state support that if you want to level of idiotism. It’s not idiotism, I get support from Russian Ministry of think it’s really precise politics. Maybe culture - it’s one of the latest laws they you know, maybe not, but Russia has excepted, for example One Moscow two ministries of culture. We had one theatre wanted to celebrate their 100th minister of culture, but they fired him, anniversary and now according to the new and they made him the director of Cul- regulations they have to apply for fund- tural agency, new organisation, and the ing but they cannot apply themselves, second person - the director of Moscow but they need to have some competitors. conservatory became the minister. But Only competition can give you some fund- they have the same kind of possibili- ing. So you need to find an organisation ties, but one has money and the second who wants make the same kind of grant. has to plan. So one makes some plan and the other decides to give money for Magde: Like what? The anniversary? these plans or not. So finally every- thing is stuck, completely stuck. It’s so Andrei: Yes, so they fond one more the- stupid, but I’m sure that that’s politics. atre, OK, minister of culture wants it, OK Because for our new generation of poli- so we do it. So they applied also to cel- ticians, for this Putin power, I think they ebrate the anniversary of this first theatre, just don’t need any cultural activities. and they won finally. Magde: Hm. So this is a policy to liqui- Magde: No. date it? To get rid of it? Andrei: They won. Nobody really knew what to do with it. Andrei: Not get rid of it, just to make them as quiet as possible. Yeah, but Magde: That’s really crazy.. Who are well, anyway, it’s really strange. these people who decide?
Andrei: I don’t know how it finished but the situation was really strange. Page 21 interview with Andreï Smirnov save_ 25 May 2006
Magde: Is there some kind of organised or Magde: So what is your motivation to un-organised resistance on the side of the stay there? If you don’t see much pos- artists or the cultural public? sibilities, is it this kind of trying to do something useful for the public, or is it Andrei: It’s Russia. It’s Russia. Russia really..? never had any resistance. That’s also Andrei: No, I’m in a really difficult situa- specific of our country, but people just tion somehow. In the nineties, sincerely won’t. It’s like this tradition of the kitchen I was really sure, I was believing that if conversations comes back when people we create a some kind of small com- would prefer to speak in the kitchen, but munity and develop it I’m sure that in not openly, because now again this, more parallel new communities will develop and more you feel this pressure. You see in the same way in a while, we will all that people are just afraid to talk openly. somehow unite and we’ll give some Just reminding the not so far past - twen- new quality to the society but it didn’t ty years back, it was not like now but you work. Most of persons, you now I feel feel the same feelings coming back. really bad, but I’m not sure it will stay too long, but I’m really linked to this Magde: I was just talking to Erika about history because somehow in the Ther- this, that this is something that also in emin Centre I’m just sitting on a golden Hungary goes very slowly, to change the mountain, all these archives which are thinking of people about how they not not developed and lot of very interesting should behave but how they can behave forgotten information and I really want actually. That there are the possibilities to to develop it. So I’m trying to keep the protest or not to be happy with some- balance. thing. Magde: So this one of the motivations? Andrei: I think in Russia no one will To preserve the things, develop them protest, we need really a big shock and and make public? last ten years, somehow, probably it was a mistake that nothing wrong happened. Andrei: Yes, it’s very important. Because without really a strong shock, I don’t know which kind of shock, nothing Magde: And how did you actually get to will change. have all these things there? Was it your own work, or other people helped you? Page 22 interview with Andreï Smirnov save_ 25 May 2006
Andrei: You know, Moscow conservatory is Magde: I mean public, when you, do you do a very special place, Moscow is the capital concerts like this? of Russia and also Soviet union and Moscow conservatory was the main conservatory in Andrei: Of course, lot of young people come the whole country, that means that if anybody and are really crazed about this stuff and they anywhere developed, invented some musical can’t get the information anywhere, we really device, to get the patent they had to get some have a lot of people coming, and that’s good response of some expert. And all experts were that mostly eighteen, nineteen, twenty years in Moscow conservatory. Because that since old, they’re so much involved and so much in- twenties, all inventions were coming to the terested. So I hope they will survive. Of course conservatory and getting some responses, so the most important is to have those people that’s the basis of this archive. And also all de- coming, because when you get really a good velopers, researchers making some interesting response from people who come not because researches in music, were coming to the Mos- they’re forced, or are not inscribed in the cow conservatory, making reports there, doing conservatory, but just because they found on disertations, so we have a huge archive. And it the web the information and they’re interested, was thrown away in the seventies.. Just in the they come and it’s really a good feedback and garbage. But fortunately one clever guy moved good resonance. it back and collected them in some corner, and when I came to the conservatory in 1992, he Magde: That;s nice, I feel like it’s a bit lacking showed me this corner and I moved it back to in Slovakia. the shelves. Andrei: It’s a question I think of personali- Magde: And is public interested in this or it’s ties. If you have some crazy guy who can do more like a specialised thing for musicians... the same, so, in this case, probably I would move, because I understand that. If I were to Andrei: What’s public? Of course, Russia is move somewhere, at least Theremin centre huge and most of it is just not interested in will die. That’s really bad that I don’t see any anything. activities somehow take care about what we are doing. It’s really pity, I was expecting that Page 23 interview with Andreï Smirnov save_ 25 May 2006
it will become a kind of wave and will have new people. Just because it’s not possible to survive, if you’re doing the same thing. I’m lucky, because in the nineties I got some really good relations with the western studios, west and American contemporary musicians and so they invite me for workshops, lectures, so I can somehow keep the balance. But of course if I just stay in Russia and work in conservatory, I can’t survive. So I have go in this sort of busi- ness. Probably the most interesting musicians coming to the Theremin Centre are profession- ally working in banks, they are lawyers, any specialisation except musical art. It’s just not possible. save_
OKNO public01
24-26 may 2006
second version actually part of idealnypartner series, issue 7 magde at idealnypartner dot sk dusan at idealnypartner dot sk thanx Rebecca for talking to Darko, Alejandra aka elpueblodechina and Yves for IRC parts, OKNO for support and all the others networked at public01!
cc idealnypartner.sk 2006