Cooperation between two participants-players and a sound object produces a rhythmic sound composition evolving with the flow of the game. Chess-box is a matrix constantly changing its visible entry points with the movements of the figures, thus influencing every audible sound event. The mutual influence of contingencies and the creation of a series of accidents within the framework of conventions of the checkers game becomes the main driving force of the performance.
The gaming paradigm offers a binary representation of reality: the truth always remains with the winner. The development and integration of technologies into our daily routines make the notion of truth more complex if not eliminates it, presenting it as an infinite set of variations and possibilities. In the Checkers sound installation, the truth is intentionally represented as an object of technology being a part of a discrete set of elements of the objects. The truth is stated by an aleatory sound event that happens during the game.
Chess-board, checkers, active electronics.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Alex Pleninger—composer, engineer, and inventor of sound electronic instruments. He has composed and performed electronic and computer music since the late 1980s. He loves using vintage computers, combining various techniques, composes for theatre and cinema. As a member of the Ethnica Music Project, released an album and toured internationally. In recent years he has actively combined academic electronic sound with cheap tunes. He worked on a reissue of the Soviet synthesizer Polivoks. In 2015, he established Keen Association—Moscow, where he develops and manufactures innovative sound art and musical instruments.
Anastasia Koroleva —video and mediaartist, performer, and sound artist based in Moscow. She creates sound installations and sound machines, develops performative practices and digital experimental animation. Collaborator with Keen Association—Moscow. Keen participant of multiple exhibitions, festivals, and concerts in Moscow and abroad, including Lexus Design Award Russia Top Choice 2020, CTM Festival (Germany), Road to Nowhere Music Festival (Italy), and Prepared Surroundings.