This performance is an extension of research on the mutual influence of humans and machines started by Nikolay Golikov way back in 2017. During the work on the performance Post-sensuality, performed at Prepared Surroundings 2017, he invented a device to record and reproduce human sensuality.
This time, Nikolay Golikov and Vladimir Yermachenkov focus on another aspect of human-machine relations: a person becomes a part of a musical instrument subject to the device’s algorithm. This work is not so much about using the human body as a musical instrument but an attempt to look at our relations with technologies that we create ourselves. Today technologies are our indispensable companion. We trust them with operating our lives—food delivery, personal conversations, safety, transportation. Whereas, people are “organs” of technologies securing their survival. If humanity ceases to exist, all the technologies that we created will vanish before too long without maintenance.
Human being, electromyostimulation device, sound elements.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Nikolay Golikov—artist, experimental musician, engineer. Main areas of activity: sound art, science art, tech-art. In his work, he often uses chemical, physical, or other natural processes. For instance, he can draw material for a work from the processes taking place in a human body or a gas burning in a receptacle. 2016 graduate of the SA))_studio program Experimental Sound and Multimedia Technologies, SoundArtist.ru community resident. As a part of the Keen Association Moscow, he develops software for Buchla format modulars, stand-alone synthesizers, and other sound-producing, recording, and processing devices.
Vladimir Yermachenkov—performance artist, choreographer, dancer. Cofounder of the PoemaTheatre Dance and Theatre Company (2009). His dance works were presented at the Moscow International Biennale for Young Art (2013), Decompression (2016), Archstoyanie (2018), Signal (2018), Museum Night (2018), Young Teatre Fashion Weekend (2018). Bereg Art Residency participant (2015, 2016). Lab participant, dramaturge, and choreographer with the Praktika Theatre (2019). Currently, he is involved in new choreographic creations and ongoing research on the possibilities of the human body, movement, dance art, and synthesis with other forms of art.