September 2021

COUPLE

Model: Ivan Kotov @ris_sgorel 
Model/Make up: Lina Marinina @emoswagirl 
Photographer: EKaterina BOiarkina @ekaterina_boiarkina_

From the opening. Sevcable Port, Saint Petersburg. September 26, 2021. Photo: Polina Nazarova

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J u l i a  K r y s h e v i c h

No patterns, no ethics, no personal background. It’s hard to imagine a human like that. But thanks to ‘Repeat Name’, now you can witness an interaction, which is NOT based on the life experience of its participants, at least, on the one part… A three-day rendezvous in a sterile, transparent room with a bunch of viewers gazing from behind the glass. Another ‘Artist is Present’? Well, it’s the robot who is present here, and it’s certainly about to stay in the near future. 

‘Repeat Name’ features two mirror installations located in two cities: for 72 hours the rooms will host a robot and a human who will interact continuously in front of the audience (whether spontaneously or algorithmically, amicably or indifferently, we may only guess). Illogical, counterintuitive, the performance might bring us to a better understanding of reality, according to the project team… Hence, Purplehaze reached out to three of the ‘Repeat Name’ originators, Anna Peplova, Natalia Fedorova, and Ilya Karpel, to briefly question them on the mind-blowing initiative. Enjoy it below.

Natalia Fedorova, curator of the St. Petersburg-based venue, artist, researcher, lecturer

Ilya Karpel — author of the project ‘Repeat Name’, artist; 

Anna Peplova — producer of the Moscow-based venue, co-curator and producer at Vzor Future Culture Lab, art manager, digital art producer (TECHNE Platform at NCCA, SIGNAL festival), performer, co-founder at LabirintLab; 

Natalia Fedorova — curator of the St. Petersburg-based venue, artist, researcher of history and philosophy of technology, curator at 101. Festival of Digital Art, lecturer at SPbU and ITMO (Art & Science Program). In her artistic practice, Natalia focuses on the intersection of natural languages and technical mediums;

Ilya Karpel, author of ‘Repeat Name’, artist. Photo: Daniil Primak

Anna Peplova, producer of the Moscow-based venue, digital art producer, performer. Photo: Daniil Primak

Authors of the ‘Repeat Name’ project: Ilya Karpel (below), Dmitry Masaidov (left), Maria Rozhkovskaya (overhead). Photo: Daniil Primak

PH: How did you come up with the idea for the project? 

Ilya Karpel: Do you mean how the ideas are usually born? Honestly, I have no answer to that question: sometimes you just come up with an idea, that’s it. However, it’s not the desire to create something, but the determination to carry it through that requires will and efforts. 

PH: Can you compare ‚Repeat Name‘ with any other existing art project, either in Russia or abroad? 

Ilya Karpel: A lot of things happened before us, and some more will take place in the field of contemporary arts; we’re just mediators between the past and the future. So keep on moving forward.

From the opening. Flacon Design Factory, Moscow. September 26, 2021. Photo: Dmitry Shelestov

Natalia Fedorova: As for me, ‘Repeat Name’ focuses on our future, i.e. living with robots. In the installation, the future is being sought after through the artificially prolonged communication between a human and a machine. For test purposes, a human participant of the project needs to be isolated from other humans. 

Such practices of isolation have a long history: here I should refer to hermitry and, indeed, art of stamina. The most obvious example might be a three-day performance ‘I Like America and America Likes Me’ by Joseph Beuys, in which he locked himself in with a wild coyote in the room.

Besides, there are quite a few works aimed at creating interfaces for interspecies communication. Take for instance, ‘Myconnect’ by Saša Spačal: an installation suggests communicating through sound that one can hear not just with auracles, but also with knees and elbows. Some less obvious but still bright examples are those from art & science: e.g. the introduction of horse blood serum into the blood of artist Marion Laval-Jeantet.

From the opening. Flacon Design Factory, Moscow. September 26, 2021. Photo: Dmitry Shelestov

A more robotic and far more communicative example is SEER (the Simulative Emotional Expression Robot) by Takayuki Todo: a robot that mimics the facial expression of the viewers and, thus, recognizes their emotions.

Anna Peplova: I always find it difficult to compare. You know, there are some artists today who take the robotic mediums to explore the forms and means of communicating, whereas the bioart-oriented projects reflect upon the interaction of bacteria and plants and animals. 

Speaking about the communication of a human and a machine, we might refer here to the sophisticated dance by Huang Yi and KUKA, (Editor’s note: a robot conceptualized and programmed by the artist). It’s also worth mentioning the attempts of finding the common language within the Co(AI)xistence project by visual artist Justine Emard. 

From the opening. Flacon Design Factory, Moscow. September 26, 2021. Photo: Milana Tokaeva

From the opening. Flacon Design Factory, Moscow. September 26, 2021. Photo: Milana Tokaeva

From the opening. Flacon Design Factory, Moscow. September 26, 2021. Photo: Milana Tokaeva

In that sense, the project ‘Repeat Name’ keeps on immersing us into the topic, yet from a different angle. While exhibiting various agents of communication in one space and locking up that lively process behind the glass panel, the authors leave them alone to co-exist, making the entire procedure visible for the external viewer. That’s certainly a physical and emotional challenge, both for the participant and the audience. We’ve just started, so we all wonder how it plays out. 

PH: Which audience do you primarily focus on? What kind of person, from your point of view, might be very interested/completely uninterested in the project?  

Ilya Karpel: I guess people engaged in academic arts, if I may say so, will enjoy ‘Repeat Name’ the most. That doesn’t mean, however, that contemporary art fans may find the project boring: they will definitely savor the beauty of the process, whereas the classics lovers might also benefit from discovering something new. All those who see the installation will probably appreciate it, except for the Russian Ministry of Culture (I’m kidding). 

From the opening. Flacon Design Factory, Moscow. September 26, 2021. Photo: Milana Tokaeva

Anna Peplova: If you more or less consider the global future of humankind, the way people change when technologies are interwoven into their lives, then you might get interested in the project. Also those involved with theatre and performance might be impressed by ‘Repeat Name’, precisely because it’s a different performative form, an attempt to exist intuitively in front of the viewer watching. 

Natalia Fedorova: I would say the installation might appeal to those used to seeing media art on the screen, which operates data and delivers abstract visualizations and sonifications. The currently bored regulars from international art biennials might also like ‚Repeat Name‘: the former usually represents video pieces as a narrative, while the latter doesn’t have it at all, just a pace and a deep breath. 

PH: Anna and Natalia, what do you find special about running ‚Repeat Name‘ at each of your venues? How may (choose the option: Sevcable Port/Flacon Design Factory) affect the way the audience perceives the installation? 

From the opening. Sevcable Port, Saint Petersburg. September 26, 2021. Photo: Polina Nazarova

Anna Peplova: I would rather talk about the Moscow-based part of the project. ‘Robohall’ at Flacon Design Factory is a kind of home to one of its machine residents, which used to stay in this place for some time already. Bright and clean, that space is tailor-made for experiments, like making a fine drawing. In both cities, we locate the installation in lofts, i.e. originally industrial areas that at some point became cultural platforms. We furnish the installation rooms with AliExpress goods, introducing some usual, household things into an art space.

Natalia Fedorova: For Sevcable Port (Editor’s note: St. Petersburg’s venue) both robots are aliens that, however, are far from being from another planet. As you may know, Sevcable Port is a space that used to belong to the first Russian cable factory. It’s no secret that a cable as a structure of electronic communication is equally important both for electric machines and a human, who depends upon the Internet and electricity a lot. Today Sevcable Port is a point where the city meets water. Water had long jeopardized the existence of Saint Petersburg and for that reason, Obvodny a.k.a. Bypass and Griboedov Channels were dug, while the embankments were faced with granite. A rendezvous with water can be compared to that with a robot: it’s enthralling, dangerous, and almost inevitable. 

From the opening. Sevcable Port, Saint Petersburg. September 26, 2021. Photo: Polina Nazarova

From the opening. Sevcable Port, Saint Petersburg. September 26, 2021. Photo: Polina Nazarova

From the opening. Sevcable Port, Saint Petersburg. September 26, 2021. Photo: Polina Nazarova

PH: Ilya, what kind of decision was that to demonstrate ‚Repeat Name‘ at two venues in different cities, an organizational or conceptual one?

Ilya Karpel: Indeed, the decision was a part of the concept. Lots of people from the project team were involved in the process, big thanks to them! 

PH: Please continue with the rest of the sentence: ‚Robots and humans are…‘ 

Ilya Karpel: Robo-humans, whatever you call them. 

Anna Peplova: A part of the future, an immense and shockingly beautiful one. 

Natalia Fedorova: Partners, who, however, neither know, nor can understand each other well. Yet it’s already clear that machines are coming, thus, the ability to communicate with them will soon become a key human competence.  

From the opening. Sevcable Port, Saint Petersburg. September 26, 2021. Photo: Polina Nazarova

PH: What should the viewer know before going to see the transparent room? 

Ilya Karpel: One shouldn’t enter it, actually… 

Anna Peplova: The viewers aren’t allowed in the room. It’s a different world out there, to say the least. Still the audience can watch the process from the outside, through the glass panel. I would recommend the viewer not to think too much about the things (s)he sees, but, instead, to reflect upon the possible future scenarios. What’s a machine to you? Who is a human? What do you feel while watching the installation? 

Natalia Fedorova: Well, we invite the audience to watch the transparent room, yet, as with a mirror or a glass ball, one can’t enter it. Therefore, an unusual but very important and precise view of reality is provided to the viewers. 

From the opening. Sevcable Port, Saint Petersburg. September 26, 2021. Photo: Polina Nazarova

‘Repeat Name’ runs parallely on two venues, Flacon Design Factory, (Moscow, Russia) and Sevcable Port (St. Petersburg, Russia) on September 27-29. 

Authors of the project: Dmitry Masaidov, Ilya Karpel, and Maria Rozhkovskaya. 
Curators of the Moscow-based venue: Anna Peplova, Olga Remneva.
Curators of the St. Petersburg-based venue: Natalia Fedorova, Anastasia Blur. 

Learn more about ‘Repeat Name’ here: repeat.name
And don’t miss a chance to see it first-hand.

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J u l i a  K r y s h e v i c h

Attending Cosmoscow this year (Sep. 18-20, Manege Central Exhibition Hall, Moscow) was certainly a special experience. Firstly, the art fair unfolded into a record-breaking, fully-fledged programme, despite all those unexpected changes that took place at short notice. Initially planned to run at Gostiny Dvor in the second week of September, the event doesn’t seem to have lost anything from being transferred in space and time. The current edition featured 82 galleries (a number never seen at Cosmoscow before), 16 of which enjoy international presence in countries like Austria, Argentina, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Georgia, Germany, Hong-Kong, Switzerland, the US, and Estonia. Some tech upgrades made the visit to the fair even comfier and more enjoyable, while the extensive framework of projects helped to channel the guests’ attention to the most noteworthy things.

In the middle_ ‘Soul piercing, Aura kissing, Mind blowing’. Neon installation by Genda Fluid (Antonine Baever), 2020

Where digital art meets NFTs

Along with the variety of galleries participating, Cosmoscow impressed its visitors with a range of special projects this time. An absolute novelty of the season was a section of NFT art hosted by the Moscow-based fair together with their colleagues from New York, CADAF Crypto and Digital Art Fair. Immersive videos to discover, displayed on flat screens, were presented by some young but already famous Russian artists, the award-winning millennials, such as Maria Agureeva (b. 1985), Ivan Plusch (b. 1981), and Dima Rebus (b. 1988).

From left to right_ NFT-installations by Ivan Plusch and Dima Rebus

Among those who came to stay it’s worth mentioning an Irish tech-savvy, contemporary photographer Kevin Abosch, who pioneered in being on the first-basis with AI and blockchain, and Anne Morgan Spalter, a US digital mixed-media artist with a great academic background. A certain trend of the year, a show of NFTs, has been promised by the Hermitage Museum’s director (St. Petersburg) Mikhail Piotrovsky, while Russian art fairs are gradually catching on to that kind of crypto fashion. The Cosmoscow NFT section was curated by Elena Zavelev of CADAF and Jess Conatser of Studio As We Are, just to note the names. 

NFT art section at Cosmoscow featuring works by Kevin Abosch, Maria Agureeva, Anna Taganzeva-Kobzeva and others

From Moscow with love 

Unless we’re talking about the fairs of young art, some large-scale art events rarely focus on its novice members: while the latter might be presented at the show, a greater emphasis is usually given to the acknowledged maitres. It’s the second time in 2021 that Cosmoscow sabotages the ingrained tradition, making way for the new. The section titled ‘Created in Moscow’ (curated by Alexey Maslyaev) aimed at highlighting works by some emerging Russian artists, who were, in turn, represented by the local city galleries. 

Created in Moscow_ section aims to highlight emerging talents. Curated by Alexey Maslyev

That is not to say, however, that all the gallerists who applied for the section were up-and-comers. Indeed, quite a few freshmen like a-s-t-r-a gallery (since 2018) and ARTZIP (since 2019) seized the opportunity, yet they shared the space together with the residents of some full-blooded art venues, take pop/off/art and JART Gallery, for instance, founded in far 2004 and 2008 respectively. So what’s so special about ‘Created in Moscow’? The thing is, each gallery admitted to the section could demonstrate a work by one of its artists for free. Impressive, isn’t it? Considering the very preliminary cost of Cosmoscow participation, that might amount to a few thousands dollars per booth in the main section.

P. S. Apparently, Cosmoscow adheres to a rather sensible pricing policy as compared with its international colleagues, yet there is no exact, publicly available information about the fees at the fair.

Booth C03, pop_off_art gallery, Moscow. Featuring Vladimir Potapov, _From Inside_ series, 2017

Booth D4, 11.12 Gallery, Moscow. Featuring Rinat Voligamsi, 2020

Dedications

Since the time it was founded in 2017, Cosmoscow Foundation for Contemporary Art has delighted its audience with a great assortment of projects that primarily aim to support and encourage young artists and noncommercial art institutions by reinforcing their names in public view. That means not only financial support, but also a great help in promotion, including an opportunity to show one’s project at the fair and present oneself at Cosmoscow Talks. It was Irina Korina, Russian installation artist with a theatrical background, who received the main nomination for her tangled work ‘Razzle-Dazzle’ this time.

Installation ‘Razzle-Dazzle’ by Irina Korina, 2021. Courtesy of Cosmoscow_

Irina Korina was named the ‘Artist of the Year’ by Cosmoscow in 2021. Photo_ Sleek Magazine

Just like Korina became the ‘Artist of the Year’, the Vyksa Art Residence (Nizhny Novgorod Region) was named the ‘Institution of the Year’. The same age as Cosmoscow, Vyksa functions as a year-round research platform for culture professionals from the entire country, which has been a great matter of interest of late.

The Vyksa Steel Works, the major factory in the town of Nizhny Novgorod Region, painted by the Russian street artist Misha Most. Courtesy of the Vyksa Art Residence_

Neither did the organizers forget about the museums. It’s not by chance that the Multimedia Art Museum has been acknowledged in 2021: this year MAMM marks the 25th anniversary and does it with great pomp in the space of the fair! Some works by Russian conceptual artists including Sergei Shutov, Valery Chtak, and Andrey Kuzkin have been recently added to the museum’s collection and proudly shown at the display. At the same time Garage MCA, which was honoured as the ‘Museum of the Year’ at Cosmoscow in 2020, turned to their St. Petersburg-based archives, to highlight the practices of performance coming from the northern capital.

The Multimedia Art Museum has added some works by Valery Chtak to their collection for the anniversary

The contemporary art fair had also room for loving memory: specially created for the show at a Japanese university, the work ‘A Night at Shore’ by the late artist Nikita Alexeev, ex-member of the ‘Collective actions’ art-group, was exhibited in Russia for the first time. The no less exciting section ‘Collector Eye’ based on the gems of some private collections featured the artworks by some outstanding Russian non-conformists, including the recently deceased Oleg Tselkov and Oskar Rabin.

Ironic vS Serious_ the ‘Collector Eye’ section was organized thematically this time

Simply incredible 

Cosmoscow goes digital, fortunately, only in part. While we are still able to watch the best from the world of contemporary art live, loading ourselves up with some audio guides produced by the Russian Association of Galleries (often abbreviated as AGA; founded in 2020), the process of purchasing the artworks has been greatly transferred online. Launched by the Cosmoscow team in 2020, the digital TEO platform, which is by the way the biggest Russian marketplace now to sell contemporary art on the web, enables the audience to learn more about the liked work, discover the price, and, actually, purchase the piece. Just get your camera phone ready to scan the QR codes written on the label. In fact, the Cosmoscow online version runs until September 26, so we are still able to speak of it in the present tense and, if desired, support the vibrant Russian contemporary art market… 

Wait, QR codes as a work of art_ Recycle Group says yes

To be continued…

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I r e n  R u s s o

How would you describe what you create?

I try to project the very special state of melancholy and nostalgia for times before the Internet era.

HOW HAS YOUR EDUCATION influenced YOUR CURRENT PRACTICE?

I was born and grew up in a creative family, my father is a commercial photographer and my mother is a seamstress, so I usually try to use my parent’s craft in my artistic practice. Also I’ve got my BA as an art historian in Kharkiv state academy of design arts. But academic education gave me much more networking skills among other students who became gallerists, artists, art managers, etc.

What kind of photographer did you set out to be?

Independent photographer-flâneur, who is always aestheticizating the local Ukrainian context for creating my own visual vocabulary of characters, landscapes, vernacular architecture. I always wanted to be a “pioneer-discoverer” in different aspects. For example, for creating portraits I am always much more interested in finding interesting, unknown people, without having a rich model experience and having nice Instagram. Or I enjoy finding new “wild” locations for shooting, then share it to other colleagues on Google maps, then to be calm and pleased that I was the first who has been there.

What are the fundamental messages you want to get across with your work?

I never have some strict messages, for me it is important to transfer the general state of nostalgia.

What is the concept behind your ongoing ‚Absentee — Attendee‘ series?

From the very beginning of my photographic journey, I have explored my habitats with a clear, defined goal — to find new, interesting locations that could become a worthy backdrop for a good portrait. But this time I changed my method and focus. For this, I turned to flanery as a kind of meditation, the desire to explore and contemplate the most unobvious places and views.

What’s the most important thing for you when shooting a series? How do you bring out the idea?

“Pretty Ghetto” and “Absentee’Attendee” series weren’t planned in advance, it’s result of my constant long-term explorings. In “Pretty Ghetto” the human was always the main hero, happening on some surrealistic but local background. In “Absentee” I’m changing my focus to native landscape as a main character and theme for observing. In other series, such as “38” I appeal to the theme of relationships between me and my best friend and model Yaroslava, because I always was obsessed by such themes as similarity in relationships between best friends, models and photographers, etc. In the near future I’ll present my new series called “Childhood Ballad” where I was looking for children like me in my early 2000’s childhood, and then photographing them in my old clothes with old toys from that time.

Which artists have inspired you?

There are my contemporaries: Michal Pudelka, Lukasz Wierzbowski, Nazar Furyk, and of course, Synchrodogs.

Which work are you most proud of?

I appreciate all of my work.

What is next for you?

First photo book 🙂

KUKLA

Fashion stylist: Yuliana Popova @yulianappv
Model: Arina Sanzhizhapova @ BST Models Agency @arinaa___s
Makeup Artist: Vasilisa Nikolaeva @nikol_vasillisa
Photographer: Aleksandra Gritsenko @ask_me_to_shoot