Sound-Performance in collaboration with Victor Alimpiev, “Kunsthalle for Music” by Ari Benjamin Meyers, V-A-C Foundation
Troika Shopping Mall, Moscow 2019
“The most radical performance awaits visitors at the Troika Shopping Mall. At certain times, ten boys and girls appear with megaphones on travelators. They whisper words: "Hello", "Say", "How do you hear?" They move up and down to meet for a moment at the climax as they travel in different directions and then part again. The plot of ‘Further is just speakerphone’ by Victor Alimpiev and Alexey Kokhanov is simple, but creates a powerful effect. The crackling, noise and signals from megaphones make many people clog their ears or even call the police. For others, however, this is an unusual experience, like being at the rehearsal of orchester." - The Art News Magazine 2019
Artist Victor Alimpiev and composer Alexey Kokhanov worked on the musical production "Further is just speakerphone". “The canvases of the travelators penetrate the building like lightning, and in the same way, the performance itself permeates the quiet ritual of consumerism with the unexpected sounds of a new “speakerphone”, said Kokhanov.
Alimpiev and Kokhanov have produced perhaps the most powerful intrusion into the usual course of things. Every second visitor who accidentally became a spectator of the performance reacted to it. This means that the “hands-free” effect has been achieved. - Esquire
Consisting of short music interventions taking place in three different indoor markets and one shopping mall in Moscow, the project Moscow Solos is produced by V–A–C Foundation and Kunsthalle for Music, a nomadic institution founded by Ari Benjamin Meyers. With this itinerant project, Kunsthalle for Music aims to develop new forms of production, presentation and distribution of music within the context of contemporary art and outside established industry formats. Moscow solos is the third leg of the Solos series, after Hong Kong and Rotterdam and this is the first time the project has been presented in popular public spaces such as food markets. The will to explore the city scape in a performative context and mix that with everyday life led V–A–C and Kunsthalle for Music to choose food markets as venues for the performances. The project also goes one step further by reaching out to market staff, both sellers and admin workers, who are invited to collaborate and perform with selected artists and musicians who create scores—musical and textual—and rehearse them for a whole month in situ. This collaborative process has resulted in new music pieces that are inspired and influenced by their context and surroundings.