#usse

16th July 1990: The Declaration of the State Sovereignty of Ukraine was approved by the recently elected parliament of the Ukrainian SSR by a vote of 355 ayes and 4 nays. This was the first step towards the independence of Ukraine, officially proclaimed on 24 August 1991.

«IT» - Soviet AU

‘ Are you alive my friend? ‘

by Peter Kirn

Excerpted from here

Wassily Kandinsky "Red Yellow Blue", 1925, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France.

“Russia has put image to music in the form of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, in Wassily Kandinsky’s vibrant abstract paintings and numerous oversized dramatic spectacles. But lesser known are the country's experiments with electrified visual music, particularly those conducted in the Soviet period. These strange, ahead-of-their-time inventions are now being reborn with a new generation of artists.

VISION INTO REALITY

Jean Delville's cover illustration for  Scriabin's Prometheus: The Poem Of Fire composition

In theatre, dance and music, Russian and Soviet-era artwork used every available technology to achieve a trans-disciplinary, immersive aesthetic experience. They continued to innovate with machine-driven optics and light when many other electronic music experiments were left literally in darkness. And if the composer Richard Wagner only theorised about Gesamtkunstwerk, it was the Russians who attempted to turn their fanciful visions into reality.

In this age of electrified machines, Russia's fascination with visual music can be traced to its spiritual forefather, the composer Alexander Scriabin. He found esoteric, spiritual meaning in the connection between colour and sound, with different musical notes producing synesthesia – the merging of one sense with another. To recreate the stimuli in his mind, he even added a line for colour organ ("clavier à lumières") to his mystical tone poem Prometheus: The Poem Of Fire from 1910. That creation splashed colour around the theatre in time with shifts in the music.

CITY AS SYMPHONY

Arseny Avraamov's "Ornamental Sound Animation", patterns that would be used as the basis for sound production

In early Russian visual music creations, you find a connection between music and painting. Futurist Vladimir Baranov-Rossiné's "Optophonic Piano” instrument created in 1907 employed hand-painted discs, spun in front of lights by a mechanical apparatus controlled from a keyboard.

Avant-garde composer Arseny Avraamov (1886–1944) was known for ideas like his raucous Symphony Of Factory Sirens. This work used an entire city as its instrument – employing factory sirens, automobile horns, the foghorns of the Soviet naval fleet alongside machine guns, cannons airplanes, a large band and choir performing the socialist anthem “Internationale”, among many other elements – all to create a massive-scale composition.

KGB AND SOVIET SPACE PROGRAM

Diagram of Evgeny Sholpo's Variophone that produced "ornamental sound"

In fact, it's possible to imagine an alternative history of the synthesizer, one in which optical-electronic technology is employed in place of analogue (and later digital) circuitry. Drawn to the uniquely organic sounds that can be created, artists are reinterpreting this history, made accessible by the internet and by researchers like Andrey Smirnov, a specialist in the history of Russian visual and musical technologies. Derek Holzer and Mariska de Groot have each been inspired by the earlier inventions to work with the medium of opto-mechanical-electronic tone wheels. These spinning discs transform patterns of light and shadow into simultaneous sound.

Other works are just now coming to light. Some of these productions had military backing for research into the effects of audiovisual stimulation on different subjects. The KGB, Soviet air force and space program each supported the development of light instruments as technology that might eventually have intelligence or aerospace applications. Asking my Russian friends with some expertise in the area is itself a strange experience – they're initially surprised I don't know about the connection, then cagey about details, which were tightly classified in the age before Glastnost.

LIGHTING UP SOVIET LIVING ROOMS

Bulat Galeev's "Indicator"  a light and sound instrument designed for Soviet spacecraft.  Courtesy Institute Prometheus

These projects might seem like off-hours hobbies – and the engineers certainly had to frequently scrounge for parts, but the USSR bureaucrats evidently believed in their usefulness to the Soviet agenda. None other than legendary rocket engineer Sergey Korolev requested the "Indicator" to be produced by Bulat Galeev – a light and sound instrument designed for spacecraft. Instead of blaring klaxons and blinking buttons, the Indicator showed data as swirls of abstract colour – looking more like science fiction, or at least your screen saver, than what you'd expect from an average 1960s control panel. The design saw real-world tests, even if lighter, more compact conventional instrumentation won out in practice.

Following military experimentation, the light organs were popularised for the regular Russian citizen. An invention called "Disco" was mass produced, and brought sound-reactive coloured lighting effects to Soviet kitchens and living rooms. For those who couldn't afford to buy such things, DIY was an option. The Moscow Central Radio Club managed by the state even published electronics diagrams of inventions from the USSR as well as the West in pamphlets, and in the days before the internet, would respond to written inquiries from hobbyists electronics creators. This meant that psychedelic coloured lighting was a regular feature in music performances.

If you didn't encounter them there, you might even have some mandatory exposure to audiovisual installations in the relaxation rooms of factories, like the auto production facility at Kamaz. There, the USSR hoped, the abstract animations would sooth workers and boost productivity.”