There, beyond the clouds, there, beyond the clouds. Tam-tam-taram-tam-tam-tam. It will be difficult to single out crystal clear video art in Kherson. But since 2002, the annual contemporary art festival “Terra Futura” (initiator and organizer – Totem Center, Kherson) has been trying to do just that.
Forerunners. When the next material for the festival was being collected, the Belozersky artist Alexander Pechersky came to “Totem” and brought a mysterious videotape. He said it was filmed at the very beginning of the nineties by guys from Belozerka. Inside was a 15-minute film, probably shot on the first video camera that appeared in the village, in the city, in the country. The plot was about zombies. We noticed the extreme naturalism and picturesque makeup done with gouache paints. Some scenes resembled a depressive TV play from the times of Psychic TV.
“Totem”. In 1996, several enthusiasts organized the “Totem” studio to produce authorial television programs. At that time, television seemed to hide some superpowers. You could create and present your creations to a large audience. Back then, computers were known but only seen by a few. All special effects could be mixed in a basin, cut out of paper, filmed through a fogged-up glass, and drawn on any surfaces. Analog won. Digital was awaited. The first film that was no longer a film was Max Afanasyev’s video “Don’t tease the city with children’s smiles.” It was the story of a city “Little Red Riding Hood” who went for a walk and was eaten alive by the city. The authors found it difficult to define the genre because the film contained all the technical techniques of that time. It was like breaking out, or rather – breaking free from the format. Lack of plot, a mix of musical fragments and noises, torn editing, black-and-white aesthetics. This was the first work made within the “Totem” studio without ties to television. It was even awarded a diploma at some festival with the note “for creative search.” This phrase haunted all the studio’s works at that time. On the one hand, the films did not resemble cinema, on the other – they still appealed to the cinematic language. The main theme for Totem members at that time was urban space, searching for manifestations of urbanism in the provincial environment, and a tendency towards associative narration. There were many experiments. And yet, “Totem” still sometimes makes films – but films not in essence, but in form.
If we take all the works made from 1998 to 2014 as a whole, there will be very little in this colorful kaleidoscope that resembles academic video art, which is most often used to illustrate media art lectures. Kherson films are largely based on the cinematic principle of capturing the world, but the fragile plot, fragmentation, and stream of illustrated consciousness lead away from cinematic canons. The vast majority of works reflect on the closed hierarchy of values in the provincial environment. The most common form of displaying Kherson media is gallery screenings and broadcasts in special boxes at various exhibition venues. However, several films have won awards at film festivals where they were accepted as cinema, despite the blurred and specific format.
Almost video art:
Wedding Songs of Kherson Region
Almost cinema:
Evolution. In 2003, Stas Volyazlovsky joined the studio. Since then, video art has become one of the dominant directions in “Totem’s” works. The tandem of Stas Volyazlovsky and Max Afanasyev created about thirty video works, most of which were shown in various galleries and exhibition spaces. The first work was shot on the border of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, in a truckers’ hotel. Near the TV, where a solid man in a jacket and tie plays a folk instrument, another man in sports pants and a tubeteika sits, drinks tea, and listens to the first. The 40-minute video was shot in one take. A video about different cultures, different states, different heroes on both sides of the screen. The viewer seems to spy on two worlds, hoping that he himself is in a third…
In 2009, Totem gathered talented young people into the “Youth Media Club,” whose task was to give basic ideas about media art, teach working with programs, and provoke their own creativity. The most successful works were selected for the “Terra futura” festival, which by then had become a reporting platform for Kherson artists and later for the entire South of Ukraine. Literally from the second festival, a block of short films and video art joined the main exhibition program. Initially, the organizers divided the program into “daytime” and “nighttime.” The daytime version was softer, sparing viewers’ nerves, while radical experiments and age-restricted plots were hidden in the nighttime. However, over time, either the organizers’ sense of danger dulled, or the audience became smarter and enriched their cultural baggage enough – but everything began to be shown within one general program without regard to the moral and mental stability of the audience.
Forbidden Love. Yulia Logachyova
Somnium. Rodion Krasnovid, Olga Semenyuta
Exercise. Elena Afanasyeva, Mikhail Klyokta
Iconic projects and apocrypha
“Incident at the Dacha.” One of the strangest projects in the history of Kherson video art is the cycle of short films “Incident at the Dacha.” The first of the 10 episodes was released in 2005. In the summer, Totem director Elena Afanasyeva had a birthday, and the team decided that the best celebration would be work, shooting a tendentious blockbuster with elements of horror and chases. The dacha was chosen as the location. Although the film was conceived as a home video, it managed to find a special stylistic technique that allowed imitating modern cinema within the home video aesthetic with its recognizable clichés and repetitions. Inspired by the success of the first episode, “Totem” shot several other stylizations, parodying both specific films and genres as a whole. Unexpectedly for the authors themselves, “Incident at the Dacha” was picked up by curators and shown at contemporary art exhibitions at national and international levels.
Incident at the Dacha 8 (Popovichi)
“Rapany.” One summer, “Totem” took young directors to the seaside village of Zhelezny Port for a small residency with an ecological focus. Semyon Khramtsov recalls:
“I took a tablet with me and started showing Stasevich (Stas Volyazlovsky – ed.) how to write and edit music on it. I take drums, ask – how is it? Stasevich says – it fits. I take several guitar riffs, say – choose! Stasevich – this one! Then I showed how to process the voice. Stasevich took it as a miracle. The first text for the song was taken from the advertising brochure of the boarding house where we lived. Then I constructed a pretty good melody and let Stas listen. He said: ‘Here, Sema, I only hear the phrase “We are not roosters.”‘ That’s how the title hit of the album was born.”
The duo “Rapany” is a radical satire in which the authors put on the masks of gopnik-homosexuals. Trying to dress “real guys” in flashy clothes and gay attributes, the authors create a volatile mixture ready to explode from within. Although the “Rapany” project was conceived as music videos, their live concert was a striking success at the “Terra futura” festival.
Museum projects. Since 2009, Totem and their colleagues have been creating video and media projects for museums. The first project based at the Odessa Museum of Private Collections named after Bleshchunov was the media presentation “Thing in itself.” The authors were offered to choose one exhibit from the museum’s collection and present the image of this object in a plastic etude, which was shown on monitors in the museum halls. For each item, the authors wrote a short story that formed the basis of the choreography.
The form of working with the Odessa museum seemed so interesting that “Totem” implemented the “New Breath of Culture” program, involving artists and museums from three countries: Ukraine, Georgia, and Armenia. For Kherson authors, participation in the program somewhat shifted the vector of creative experiments from trashy frenzy to searching for a new aesthetic within (or on the border of) traditional cultural space.
“VacciNation.” Before one of the festivals, three young people came to “Totem” and asked to evaluate their works. Sergey Serko, Valery Kopytsov, and Marianna Tarish. The guys’ paintings had transminimalist madness, every square centimeter filled with ornament and tiny pictograms. The guys blew minds. The girl was unclear at first. This bright trio soon became known as the highly productive group “VacciNation.” Besides thousands of manifestations in all kinds of creativity, “VacciNation” successfully realized itself in video art. At first, they passionately documented their travels and art actions. Over time, microplots began to emerge from this stream of chronicle footage, which were presented as separate clips and, in essence, were small spontaneous performances captured on camera. It was playing with various everyday situations, provoking events, playing with objects, animals, viewers at hand.
The only series from “VacciNation” where there is no active author intrusion into the plot, only cold material fixation, is Sergey Serko’s films about his alcoholic father. Sergey filmed not so much the actions of his drunk parent as captured the special atmosphere of another post-alcohol reality. This video has minimal movement but maximum tension and paranoid humor, which take it away from the style of social videos.
“Liquid Television.” Liquid TV consists of a kaleidoscope of various fragments illustrating or parodying television reality. Exactly to the extent that television reflects real life, Liquid TV reflects television reality. All elements of Liquid TV have analogs in modern television structure. These are fictional (staged) plots, fragments of unshot films, trailers for nonexistent blockbusters, chronicle footage, imitation of TV programs, animation, interviews with interesting people, video collages, performances, flash mobs, and more. Often, the plot for Liquid TV can be an event noticed by the author during travel, rest, tedious waiting, walking with a video camera, etc. While watching, the viewer should not lose the feeling of plot instability and constant channel switching. Plots can suddenly start, freeze, and abruptly end at the most interesting place. This fragmentation became the main principle of Liquid TV, as well as suddenly appearing and disappearing hosts.
“Someone Else’s Mobile.” Stas Volyazlovsky was in a strange mood (as usual). He came to the studio and drew with a ballpoint pen a mobile phone stuck to a young man’s face with tentacles. The theme was immediately picked up and developed in the smallest details. They drew a comic. Stas wrote a fairy tale. Max Afanasyev wrote a script for a short film. Two young graduate designers took on the task of creating it in 3D animation. According to Max’s script, the first film was created, and then five years later the second. Thus, “Someone Else’s Mobile” was embodied in a comic, an animated film, and a two-part short film.
Gypsy Mobile (animation)
The face-to-face meeting of two iconic figures of Kherson video art – Stas Volyazlovsky and Semyon Khramtsov. Stas Volyazlovsky is a laureate of the Kazimir Malevich Prize, a participant in numerous exhibitions and contemporary art projects in Ukraine, Russia, the USA, and Europe. Semyon Khramtsov is a professional designer with a penchant for contemporary art. Both are creators and participants of the group “Rapany” and authors of many video projects.
Semyon: I remembered my first cartoon. I found a camera, an old 35mm, and my dad gave me a cord that allowed frame-by-frame shooting. I had Kinder Surprise dolls, flat ones, I painted backgrounds with watercolors and shot a cartoon about “Our Hero of the Time,” some cowboy who was bullying a banker. The thing is, we shot all this and put it aside because dad said special chemicals were needed. And those chemicals were not found. Maybe the film was already gone, but I remember that evening – so it wasn’t wasted…
Stas: And my first film was also shot with someone else’s camera, called “Passage through the cemetery,” it was aesthetic. For some reason, I wanted to convey the spirit of the road I walked every day, and it was shot in sepia. There I go – legs, legs, legs, and then I leave the frame. Well, it was unconscious. And how did it start? I had a “Zenit” in childhood, attended a circle, but all that is gone. Then I got a job at a newspaper in 2005, and I got a digital camera, and now I realize I missed a lot. I didn’t think to turn on video… didn’t make video plots, but then I noticed flipping through a series of photos that they flash like this – and that’s already action… We had a designer at the newspaper who often amused himself by taking similar photos and flipping them back and forth quickly.
Semyon: Like two-frame animation…
Stas: Yes! It makes some deputy blink, and it was funny. And I thought you could build plots like that. And if there is a tripod, even better, no horizon jumps, stable composition… And so began “home entertainment.” My whole apartment – all of it! – was shot in different films. Toilet, kitchen, balcony, all apartment places were shot as backgrounds for stop-motion. I shot many episodes alone, so the 10-second function on the camera was very helpful. Pressed and managed to run into the frame… But it’s very hard work. After one such film, you even lose weight. My wife said after shooting the film “Baby and Carlson” that I really lost weight. The shooting lasted two days, from morning till evening. And it was running from pressing the button to setting up shots, plus there were dolls that had to be set up, but they fell. They had to be fixed so they crawled on the radiator, walked, and the supports behind were not visible. After that, muscles and everything else hurt.
Semyon: My first camera could do timelapse. You set it for some time – and it shoots by itself. And my first animation was a fixation of my life: we do something in the office, and the camera captures everything. And the sunset, our two Kherson TV towers – I took the camera, and clouds run there, whoosh – and sunset… That is, it was admiring beauty!
Stas: Yes, exactly, admiring beauty.
Semyon: At first, it was important for me to master everything technically, that is, to master the craft. We went to courses at “Totem,” did various assignments. But a couple of years ago, I gave up all that craft. By the way, I met you – and gave up all the craft! What craft when people got SUCH cameras, they started shooting SUCH pictures!!! And I realized chasing that is not interesting. Everyone gets the same films. But to show what is unique now, here and now… To show a unique person, create a unique situation. So it no longer matters how to shoot.
Stas: Yes, Solovyov recently said that it no longer matters what you shoot with, quality doesn’t matter. You can shoot a plot with a mobile phone that will be shown in the most prestigious gallery.
Semyon: Yes, yes! When I first got acquainted with art, I decided to shoot an alphabet made of poop. For some reason, it ended on the first frame. I photographed it, and photographed it well… But when I later opened the poop in full screen, then zoomed in… I just felt sick, got nauseous, and I…
Stas: Gave up?
Semyon: Yes, gave up. Well, purely physiologically, there are things I can’t do, but in principle, I think everything is possible… as long as it hooks… Do you have any taboos?
Stas: Well, I don’t know. Probably, I don’t fit into the framework of what is called “generally accepted prohibitions,” haha! I have no prohibitions, as they say – “for art, I’ll even eat shit.”
Semyon: I’d argue with you. Shooting, say, a dying grandfather…
Stas: No, well, we’re not talking about such extremes…
Semyon: Well, you feel like a fish in water in open sexuality, but there are some other taboos…
Stas: …Once we went out with “Totem” to nature, students had to shoot something, and I thought it would be interesting when they eat (they had a picnic), so I would undress and walk on all fours, showing an ass on legs… But it was important that they didn’t pay attention… It was spontaneous, and in the end, the film “Invasion from space” was made. So I mean, there was no initial idea. Only once did I have a script. “Death of the Masturbator. I really wrote down what would happen. There was a plan. But otherwise, it’s a stream of consciousness. Do you have a script, storyboard?
Semyon: Well, once I did. Well, you understand… When you need to see how smoke beautifully curls – you need not to breathe. So here: I try not to breathe when I have an idea. If I shoot a photo or video – I try not to think. When I shoot, I try to collect everything in the process, string all elements together… And I’m afraid to look into the future so as not to scare it away. I tried shooting both ways. But I realized that the films where I initially planned everything (development, ending) – I like them less than those where form and idea were born instantly, and you shot them. Often only during editing do you come up with some features. During shooting, I only marked key points, and then let everything “go with life.”
Stas: Sometimes you just shoot material and don’t know what will happen to it later, like valuable pieces… My whole computer is full of them. Sometimes a whole theme can be born from a piece, and then you finish shooting the whole film for that piece.
Semyon: Yes, shot first, then after some time came up with what to do with it. It’s like in Eastern practices – you need to empty yourself to be ready to let something great through you.
Stas: I had a film called “Cats against Chinese pederasty,” explained to me in Poland by a curator who said: “It’s an excellent driving stream of consciousness.” And sometimes I look at my films and think – maybe it’s schizophrenia? But sometimes it turns out funny.
Semyon: How do you manage not to laugh during shooting?
Stas: Not laugh? I can generally not laugh in my films.
Semyon: I can’t…
Stas: That’s what annoys me about our films, that you ruin many takes! We have to reshoot a lot. You see, when I act – I believe in my character. That is, I believe that I am such a jerk from Kherson, and at that moment I live as him.
Semyon: I can’t help it, I realized back in Totem courses that I can’t stop laughing, especially when I deliver a speech. I didn’t know how to fight it. Even when I say lines off-camera, it’s often untimely… I’m emotional, and I need to overact, and when I’m in forced emotions, it works, it’s like masks, that’s mine. And when we shot silent films – that’s where the concentration of emotions is!..
Stas: Yes, silent films are your thing…
Semyon: I even have an idea now to make several silent, black-and-white films.
Stas: I see my films only in color.
Semyon: Look what happens: you are a melancholic person in life, you come from a black-and-white life, and I come from a more colorful one, but in creativity it’s the opposite – you come out in color, and I in B&W. Here’s what I think… My work takes a lot of time, I think about composition, design, and all these videos are a stream of consciousness, like a brain rest. I try not to spend too long choosing music, effects, I feel it… and it’s more work with feelings than with the mind. Well, then it’s video art!
Stas: But I can’t call my works pure video art.
Semyon: Yeah, in my feeling video art is some abstract pictures, trance…
Stas: I often visit galleries, like the “Pinchuk Art Center,” and I watch video art… Maybe I’m dumb, maybe I developed in harsh peripheral conditions, but I stand for five, ten minutes, and I…
Semyon: Get bored.
Stas: Bored!!! I probably have to read two pages of concept to understand something. And such cleverness, depth, I believe, is not in my films. My films have parody of reality, some reflection on the surroundings. I do in life what I like, even if it harms money. That’s bad, of course… But I do what I want.
Semyon: You struggle – how to call it: video art or not video art. And I think there is video and there is art in it…
Stas: You have video art, unlike me. Like when cats lick the Lenin bust that was exhibited in the “Ukrainian House.” That’s 100% pure academic video art!
Semyon: The reaction to this video is so different. Some enjoy it, others want to puke…
Stas: My favorite wife’s brother showed my films to his girlfriend, and… he never saw her again. He told me later: “I won’t introduce anyone else to your work, it was a good experience, but… I thought my relative was a star, I wanted to show off, thanks…” So you see, people suffer because of my work.
Semyon: I once shot a video (Freelancer from the countryside), dressed in a rural outfit, ran around the dacha, joked, filmed. The goal was to show this video to my clients and check: if they watch and say – “ew! what a freak,” they will drop out, meaning I’m incompatible with them by character. But if they get the joke’s point, then it will be more pleasant to work with them. So it’s a kind of social sorting.
Stas: Our films, Kherson ones, are very different from others, from Kyiv ones, from European ones…
Semyon: Yes, in Lviv they said we have different films, a different wave… But the screening there was great, many laughed, overall liked it. And artists and organizers said, “your films, Kherson ones, differ from ours. Here art is thoughtful by itself, with many meanings, subtexts, you have to furrow your brows and think, think, but yours is simple, light, buffoonish, but it really hooks and… it’s hard to compare to anything. Original.”Link
