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20190918

We’ve been on a train for three or four days crossing four of five timezones. Arttu bought an extension-cord from Moscow which we’ve used to claim control over the train corridor electricity sockets. With it we’ve recharged our mobile devices, boom boxes and last night I used it to power my modular. As I was preparing for Saturdays gigs a lady passed asking: “Perpertum Mobile?”. I didn’t understand what she was asking and replied “Techno” (I’ve used the same reply during train security checks). Saturday will be my most complicated modular synth set to date, I’ll use samples and attempt to make electro-acoustic grooves live (D-2 in Karplus mode, C-5 with melodies from my Turing Machine).

Iona has read us train horror stories, we’ve listened to podcasts and made short presentations on various topics. We passed Baikal, endless forests and mountain ranges. Sprinted to shops during short station visits for eggs and pastries. We’ve learned to bathe in the toilets in an upright position, pouring warm water from plastic flasks which are mangled in the hot water. Some conflicts in the group seem brewing. Nothing serious.. I occasionally feel my pride clogging my perception and notice my nervous macho-chatter disturbing folk engaged in each other, views or reading. At our best we operate extremely politely. People have begun to ask permissions to enter discussions others are having and intentionally not-talking when others are concentrating.

Right now we are above Mongolia and Katja spotted a white horse on the north side of the track. It was the same mere which produced the fermented milk in Kazan. Working on the train is difficult due to the comforting motion trance (the soothing tremors of the tracks and infra-deep hums). Social causes are also to blame for the observable non-focus. We are learning about each other indirectly, though subtle ques which require time to spot and using energy for this labor is way more rewarding then fixating on art.

I believe that if repeated methodologically, this practice (moving in a train as a group of artists) could inform our praxises by building into a holistic cosmology of inside jokes and theories, which could be identified across our work. This ethos could build into a creative robustness. At present I can identify possibilities for this shift but I think we would need to expose our practices more to make this experience transformative. Becoming pourus is laborsome. The transformativity I imagine, is not radical or violent.. It’s subtle, like the taste of cucumber but persistent like the oder of sweat in clothes washed in the sink.

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20190916

We had a short stay over at Novosibirsk, it felt like a nice place. Miina made a brilliant move and got us a single hotel room. We sneaked in small groups to store stuff, rest and bathe. It was noted that hipsters exhibited their personal styles. We stayed for some 10 hours and by chance witnessed the last moments of the 48-hours-nsk festival. As the name suggests the festival presented an array of exhibitions, events and performances during a two day period.

I witnessed a performance by Barbara Caveng at a metro station. A performer was wearing a spacesuit and moved slowly while waving a burned wood branch from siberia. Participants scratched cole from the surfaces of branches and mixed it with acrylic medium to make paint, which was applied to form black squares on postcards that the bypassers could take with them. One member of the group also collected audience comments and wrote them on a sheet of paper: “We are all from siberia, we know this already. Get a real job!” one comment read.

We ate at the most generic orientally themed restaurant I’ve yet to visit. It was a physical manifestation of 90ties spiritual-corporate music, mixing signs and objects from all ethnicities across the globe to form a singular, smooth experience. There were no Russian dishes available.

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20190912

Yekaterinburg is big but nice. The biennial is big but loose. Visited a sauna, collected laundry, drank beer in hipster joints and got lost while looking for a restaurant. While lost, the city felt like a byzantine version of Taka-Töölö district, mixed with a dash of Konala and Manhattan.

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20190910

Leaving Kazan the hotel receptionist asked “How was your life?”. Arrived to Yekaterinburg by night train. Made some recordings of howling wind songs the train movement produced. They felt inviting. Funny stories were told on the way but what do they mean? What are funny stories as a praxis? Comfort or avoidance? Pondering about an artistic research method which would simultaneously engage, question and reflect (like a performance does). Our groups constant chattering feels like such but not a lot of notes are being made. Perhaps we are constantly fabulating an oral account of the trip.

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20190907

Yesterday we saw a girl galloping from east, past the Vadim Sidur museum towards the center. The horse was a peasant breed and moved effortlessly along the tram tracks. The riders backpack had a flower pattern. Today we are drinking fermented horse milk in Kazan. We arrived in a open cabin night train, where the distance between our faces from the feet of other passengers was less then 10cm. Everyone in the train was at their peak performance, no disturbances at all. People timed their actions (packing and unpacking) perfectly and touched each other’s gently when passing.

We visited Sidurs museum to see Alexey Buldakov’s exhibition, which was organized as a part of the Mmoma artist placement project (they show contemporary art in old museums). Buldakovs exhibition offered a text citing Serres (parasites) and a shit-optical graffiti machine, in the form of a heated seating structure for pigeons. The shape of the structure invited pigeons to sit in such an arrangements, that their droppings would form words on the ground below. The shape we saw projected the text “peace”. The copper pipings, which positioned the birds to form the letters, were heated with water from a computer cooling system. The computer was mining for bitcoins (leaching on museum energy supply).

The exhibition offered snippets of everything we learned of his practice the day before. And extras like birds painted in watercolors and thermal imaging projections. For most of us, the shape of the pigeon seating machine would have been enough (without out the mining, heating etc. processes).

Our group discussed the maximalism of the exhibition as a feature of Russian art. In discussions we sympathized with Buldakov’s attempt to include everything into the display (he was “pulling all treads together”, Elina noted). I feel that opportunities to exhibit are rare, so I maximize the work to make. This maximalism could also be understood as an attempt to forge a narrative, which could account for the current, absurd state of affairs (The need to craft narratives was present in Vilnius too).

Maximalism could be the aesthetics of inclusivity. The museum displays here in Kazan (we visited National Museum of the Republic of Kazan) are jam-packed with stuff, ancient tools, gems etc. from every branch of social life and every historical phase of the territory. Something specific for every-specific-body. Maximalizing is a strategy for reaching out to diverse audiences.

Russians seem to manifest a strong believe in new construction materials and technology. Window frames are attached using blobs of sikaflex. Polyurethane is not cut into shape and covered with panels. The polyurethane blobs show progress: We have the new means, nails are for medieval times, our bonds are chemical.