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!!: Last year I found out many intersting projects/ people in Russia. I would like to share them and present sound/ visual art collective Ostroga from Siberia! Their project Light Collapse produce noise using rough technologies such as shortwave radio noise ocasionally incorporated with modern rhythms and other digital effects. Actually Light Collapse enabled me to notice the beauty and power of radio noise anew. My label Perineum is going to release CD-R by Light Collapse this year. It's a long and hypnotic loop of ether. Reccomended for all you lucid dreamers.
??: What is Ostroga? What does it mean? Members, policy, activity?
Vitaliy Maklakov: Ostroga is practically the same as pitchfork. Fish is being caught with the help of it. Earlier, when we organized the union, we put some sense to that name, reflecting it’s verbal direction, natural, damp associations. Firstly we released a few info-lists, a little collected material in reminiscence of photo artist Evegniy Kokurov. And that was the first issue of Ostroga journal, named as a journal of free creativity. It included graphics, prose, poetry, photo robots. Further, after a year, we published the 2nd issue — Ostroga: various. Below there is a list of music records presented, released by Ostroga and it’s branch Heart Shaped Box prod..
Ostroga:
(OTR-001) Vitaly Maklakov “Denuding To Nights”
(OTR-002) Off The Cuff “Част Неба”
(OTR-003) Медве На Мече “Ясунь”
(OTR-004) Light Collapse / Bidoche Musique “split”
(OTR-005) Kromeshna / M. Nomized “split”
(OTR-006) Bardoseneticcube “Bad Heaven“
(OTR-007) ЯО 91404 Д “Песня Рабочих“
Heart Shaped Box:
(HSB-001) Cyber Christ “Virtual Masturbation”
(HSB-002) YAO 91404 D “Бетонный Оптимизм”
(HSB-003) Far From Mind “Need No Music”
(HSB-004) Light Collapse / IDX1274 “split”
Also we’re participating in mail-art projects. The last ones in which we took part were: Humanity Unity (Italy), Obscure Action (Italy), Light (Italy), Mariposa (Mexico), Visitors From The Cosmos (Switzerland), The Street On Walk On (Australia).
??: Everyone has a gauge in his own creation. So what are your aims?
Vitaliy Maklakov: My aim is to make beautifull complete works, both visual and musical. I’m happy, that I live and have a possibility to be occupied with creation and to communicate with interesting people. But the most important of all types of creation is an education of worthy human, son or daughter, I think, it is in my future.
??: Now let’s talk about radio noise that there is aplenty in your sound works. What is radio noise for you personally? What charms you in it. Maybe because it’s a prime contact with cosmos? Have you ever “caught” any strange, alien message/ signals or something similar (do you believe in it at all?)??? Have you ever tried to meditate with radio noise? How should it come, what do you think?
Vitaliy Maklakov: In one interview ( or some forum in internet), Andrey (project Funkstillesender) said (can’t remember in word, but the sense is such), that cosmos is ideal ordered structure, and radio noise — is its voice. I think, that radio noise includes everything in itself. Radio noise is the sound of seamy side of many things. I found beauty in this ideal structure, feeling other not human order, all inclusive beauty. It can be compared with “A Black Square” by Kazimir Malevich. Universal form, color, comprised of all the colors — absolute. But at the same time not anyone can accept it, to realize a beauty of all in one. I don’t know anything in radio technics, noise — is what attracts me in it, aesthetical moment. That’s why I can’t say if I ever caught any signal from the other planet, and how should it sound according scientists. Though I was receiving strange signals, especially at night and in the village. Once me with my wife had a luck to listen to the radio symphony unusual in it’s beauty, as if the ether was manipulated by some unseen director . Unfortunately as always in such cases, we could’nt record it. As far as meditation is concerned on the sound of radionoise, my attitude to it is only positive. For unexperienced listener radio noise won’t give any emotions, cause the listenes doesn’t find any aesthetical value in it. Though again, not once I’ve been watching grannies how comfortably those were feeling with unsettled radio. I often listen to waves of radio ether too, and the record of the last loop “Tired Sun” made me for a sleep as a kid.
??: Do you need any special skills, knowledge to “cope” with radio waves? Maybe it’s a case of intuition? What are your techniques?
Vitaliy Maklakov: I work with radio noise as Light Collapse project. Particular radionoise, namely, fixation of wave with my minimal intervention (cutting unnecessary pieces) is on “Opus #1022005”. In records, for example “Short travel”, radio noise is one of the building material, the main one actually. To record radio noise track I simply turn the handle of transmitter, tune (distune) till the sound I need. Actually at this point I’m intuitively searching for some specific sound I need. After finding the proper wave, I switch the recording and trace all the process on the cassette, and do not disturb the creative act of ether during all the recording time. The only intervention is a measurment of loop continuence. One of such recordings “Evening of Insects” was included in mail art & sound compilation in Switzerland — “The Simultaneous Policy” (Invasion Records).
??: Don’t you think that radio noise is a little forgotten in a worldwide context of sound art? I mean — digital era, sterility and so on. Could you reccommend any Russian/ foreign labels, projects from that sphere?
Vitaliy Maklakov: I don’t think, that radio noise is forgotten in a worldwide context, cause that phenomena is not orientated to the mass but only to one person. But in Russian underground, radio noise as a cultural ( anticultural) phenomena is more livelier. At least anyone searching information on the interenet will find such projects as: DN23rd, Funkstillesender, Kryptogen Rundfunk, Light Collapse. Furthermore we have organized “Coallition of Radio Noise”. That is a group of above mentioned projects, each of them has a primal relation with radio noise. There’re no other special people leading propaganda of the new values of ether. Only us, creating what is now and what will be in future. From the Russian labels I’d mention: Zhelezobeton, Abgurd Subdivision and Ostroga.
??: But there’s a tendency that space is geting filled with more and more signals, isn’t it? The factor is the bigger usage of wireless communication? In this case maybe there should appear some new sound forms/ combinations, frequencies, intensity and so on? What is the potential?
Vitaliy Maklakov: I’ve been thinking about that topic already. Human, always contaminate the living space arround him, creating tools of communication, and so do not think, that with all that he’s polluting ether too. Each second the same mobile connection carries a huge amount of very different information. And all that we screen through ourselves somehow. I haven’t been thinking what is the potential. I just follow the ether.
??: You have mentioned something about your unusual places for sound recording, like a bathhouse, yes? Any more examples? What are the results? What about some extreme/ weird conditions for recording like: hunger, drugs, cold, 3rd sleepless night? Is your creation exclusively sane? What is sanity then?
Vitaliy Maklakov: I was making ether recording in a village. Was listening in a dense forest. Fixating the ether of mad city. Different places had different signals. At the same time I don’t make any system, everything goes by intuition. Once I got an idea to record in excavations of the old town Arkaim. Interesting what kind of signal will be there? If talking about psycho-stimulators, I don’t take it for the aim of my noise recording. What I’m searching for, comes by itself, spontaneously. Sometimes everything happens with precision and vice versa. Here a lot of depends on accident. All that is like fishing.
??: Can you sum up the beginning of your sound and visual creations, the progress and the present? Express the major tendencies, please.
Vitaliy Maklakov: In music I flounce from one extremity to other. I always experiment. Talking about progress I can say that I get good feedback about my works, and that stimulates me for further creation. My 1st work “Denuding to Nights” was made in two weeks by the most primitive musical program, taking in account that in that time I was occupied with music composing for the first time (sometimes it’s hard to call the thing I create “music”). Today my work is re-released in USA b y Yousns recordings. And I’m glad that someone likes what I do. For sure, today I’m more skilled in my work with sound, but all my achievements are ridicilous if compared with other musicians. I don’t strive to make music professionaly, I just like to make it. I’ve got an univerisity degree in fine arts, I’ve become proficient in realistic rendering. For several years I’ve been working on a direction similar to the school of MAA (Masters of Analytical Art), studying the proceedings of school founder Pavel Nikolaevich Filonov. He deserves to be imitated. By the way I’m developing a theme of radio noise on my graphics too.
??: Radio noise in graphics? Interesting, how???
Vitaliy Maklakov: ...chaos of things, what is in them, under the material peel. An exposition of exploratory objects to composing parts, giving them new, marvelous forms. Radio noise is a trace that spreads from eternity to aeon. My works are cardiograms of my ether, graphical noise of my blood. Often, when I paint, I don’t imagine clear view of what I would like to get on a sheet. Sometimes on the contrary — clearly imaginable forms transmit to the paper. As far as the practical part of reflection is concerned, I haven’t found out anything new. In this case I refer to works by Pavel Nikolaevich Filonov.
??: Quite often we find such sound descriptions as: “sounds from beyond, from another world”. But these sounds were made here, in this reality. Isn’t it the case that we name those sounds as such just because we don’t understand, we can’t accept them or we haven’t heard them earlier, so we just don’t understand what happens when they sound?
Anyway, do you think that one can pass to the other dimension through the sound?
Vitaliy Maklakov: I can’t state anything about it with a full responsibility. Though I prefer to fantasize more such sounds. Sounds that we extract are going somewhere, into the big secret named ether cause they can’t dissapear, though I doubt about it too.
??: Don’t you think that a field recording is a perfect thing? I mean it’s the most ideal sound source, the most natural by it’s origin because thses sounds are extracted unconsciously, while where there is consciousness there’s a mistake? Maybe a little negative side is that they (field recordings) could be too trivial sometimes?
Vitaliy Maklakov: I think that either it’s radio noise or unsettled tv screen they are both a window to the other world, world of abstract. I was pleasatly surprised when I got to know that my friend DN from DN23rd also likes to watch unsettled tv. Even at school times I liked to practice that and have written some sketches named “Murashki Odina” (which I lost later). Someone, may imagine a psycho-zombie sitting infront of tv, looking at nowhere. But I have to let you down, such things happen very rarely. If consider radio noise as art, I think, that this phenomena is more of a primitive, abstract character. There are very few people who understand such art. On the other hand it is not necessary to understand it, cause radio noise is a part of nature. And we live in it. And if we notice art arround us, life will be full-fledged and full-blooded.
??: Can we say that throught the all the existence of mankind, starting with tribal ritual a human being was searching for different expression of noise? Then how can we name the present phenomena compared with the primordial? Can we contemporize both giving any exmaples?
Vitaliy Maklakov: A human is always searching for something. Ritual never dissapears from human life. As long as a person is alive, he or she will extract the sounds. The other matter is that means of ritual are really changing. From the simple sound of drum to rave and trance. Noise was and stays a phenomena of divine order.
??: Do you think that art is getting far from magic in nowadays?
Vitaliy Maklakov: Art is magic. Symbols and sounds (pictures, songs and so on) are elements of magic. The question is, what is magic carrying...
??: Can we talk about Russian underground? I’m interested in an interaction between small diy labels ant the big ones, cause quite often “through the fat chin it is hard to see what happens below” ( you know what I mean?)... and cities... probably Moscow, St. Petersburg play the biggest role, but you’re from K.Uralskij (how is situation with art there?), I know people from Orel, what about the other regions if compared? What can Russian scene suggest? How is Russian “experimental” specific features compared with W. Europe, Japan?
Vitaliy Maklakov: I’m not so well informed about the situation in our underground. My acquaintenship in underground is connected with my interests. Here in Siberia and in Ural all the processes are going slowly. There are fewer groups and events. Again the level of life is lower here. That plays its role too. I’m in touch with painters and musicians from abroad and from here, from Moscow and Petersburg, and Ekatirenburg. Namely they are: Aeterna Anima (Tomsk), Zinc Room (Ekatirenburg), Eonic and N-616 from Stavropol, Far From Mind (Krasnodar), very old project Cyber Christ (Piatigorsk), undermoscow’ish Misery, good contact with foreign Bidoche Musique (Switzerland) and M.Nomised (France), lately IDX1274 (USA), lots of other interesting people, can’t remember them at once. Talking about the quality of our experimental music, I can say that soon it will become the same as western and japanesse. The future belongs to the monoculture. Actually it is already so. In future I think it will be hard to identify projects by their national attribute and that is bad. We’re getting homogeneous. I like Baltic ambient, nature ambient, ambient folk projects. If I listen to such music, from the very first minutes I recognize it, know where it comes from.
??: Your understanding of the Absolute Idea?
Vitaliy Maklakov: It is absolutely everything, all the world, it can be grass, spoon or a fried potatoes. If start thinking about building of world, universe, you start to understand how endless and well made the entity is. There is a place for everything there. Absolute idea — is multitude and infinity.
??: Have you had any matter with manifestation of Nature Force?
Vitaliy Maklakov: I have faced the manifestation of Nature Force. I don’t think I must conceal it as if it is very personal matter. Once, in spring, me and two friends decided to have a sleep at home of one of us. The idea to go to the forest become spontaneously. After the midnight, we took the knives and went to forest situated near the town. There was the river Iset with it’s sloping stony banks and there we had our place, something like a burial-ground. The moon was “killing” that night, we noticed it, the sky was clear and starred. After a little walk in a blue light of a night forest, we came to the field famous for picnics. In the darkness it was beautiful. I suggested to lying down in the center of it, close to each other and to looking at the sky, then I forced to take the caps off — to uncover the contacts with Earth. I didn’t know where I got to know the algorithm how to do everything. Some time later something distorted us and started to press to the ground. It seemed that all the stars pressed me. We got frightened, jumped and went to the stone salience, to look at the river at night. Later we started to shout the names of Gods at the direction where the river flew. The most modern god at these times was Odin of course. One friend began to worry and called us back home. There was a horrible smell in the air. The strain was growing. With each scream it seemed that I called out a part of myself, and the empty space was getting filled with something dark. Suddenly the star fell down from the left to the right, over our heads and lit the forest brightly. The light was clear and blue. It was an impulse to go home. On the way, we didn’t look back like children afraid of darkness. Leaving the forest we turned back and we saw the giant with crossed arms on the chest who was looking furiously at us. In fact there were some branches of a fir as if folded specialy for us. But it shocked us very much. Nevertheless we were afraid not the empty place. Then we were going along the field separating the forest from the town. My fellow-travellers were scarried to look back at the black hole on a body of the forest. Actually from time to time I was turning back, tickling my nerves. Neatzche: “If you look at the abyss for too long, the abyss begins to look at you.” — that was working at a full programme. When we came home, I decided to lay out the runes and to learn what had happened with us. When we drew the first rune to my friend, his stomach started to ache, and fell down. I imagined what kind of rune I’ll get. When I drew it, it was exactly the one I thought about, and I looked at my friends eyes. Suddenly we started shaking and writhing. We we afraid to look at each others eyes cause there was something terrible in them. I’ve never experienced such fear. I ran to the bathroom to have a wash and calm myself. When I was washing, I looked at the mirror accidentilly, and I got numb. The whites of the eyes were burning, the pupils became black and biting. It seemed that ears and hair were moving like on some beast, something creepy was wiggling under the skin, something without any boundary. I jumped out from the bathroom and again the same, cause there was a mirror in corridor too. When I turned I screamed, called my friend, when he ran up to me, our eyes crossed, and we again as naughty children ran away to the different corners. We decided not to look at each other anymore. In such a way we spent the night staring at different directions. I was thinking about myself that this guy whose stomach was hurt, didn’t let something into himself (maybe he wasnt ready for it) and so this force hit his stomach.
OSTROGA :
http://ostroga.narod.ru/
