Art of forgetting

In the time of total informational overload an artist must seek for new forms of self expression. Otherwise, as writer and philosopher Anatolii Dnistrovy noted at the presentation of the multimedia project “AmnesiA Project,” his artistic work will be seen only by a limited audience. The basis of the “AmnesiA Project: Open Platform” was the first fiction book written by culturologist and curator of modern art Oleksandr Mykhed called AmnesiA. The book was finished five years ago, but the global financial crisis prevented its publication. Mykhed is now even happy about this fact because after this he worked in Pinchuk ArtCenter, met contemporary musicians and artists, and realized that the only way an artist can express his idea fully is through cooperation with his counterparts in other areas. Thus, the book got another 20 written images of young Ukrainian artists (Yaroslav Solop, Pymin Davidov, Oleksii Sai, Hamlet Zinkovsky, Mykyta Shalenny, Stepan Riabchenko, Serhii Radkevych, Mark Halanevych, and others), Belarusian photographer Aleksei Shynkarenko, and Georgian artist Georgi Makharashvili, as well as ten compositions by the newly created Kyiv band OYSoundSystem (Marko and Taras Halanevych together with Zhene Slovian). Mykhed also invited artists, who, in his opinion, are open to experimentation and complete immersion in the material, to join the project. “Mykhed knew that my brother Taras and I began experimenting with electronic music and asked us to write 10 pieces for fragments of his book,” Marko Halanevych, known primarily as one of the faces of the band “DakhaBrakha,” told about the beginning of the project. “I agreed because the idea seemed interesting to me but I also warned Mykhed that if I would not like AmnesiA I would leave the project. Fortunately, I really got excited reading the text.”

The book by Oleksandr Mykhed really might be interesting to very different audience. The book is written in a form of a diary of a young person, who lives in a big City and is able to watch its life, take notes of what he heard, saw, and felt. The author calls his literary piece a novel that has its internal knots and lace of consonant motifs. The book consists of numerous experiences, stories, and voices, it is an integral work, the key idea of which is paying attention to those details that life gives us and the importance of being able to keep this details in our memory. “This is very lyrical prose, in which the surface of the world is in conflict with the depth of consciousness,” poet and translator Andrii Bondar told about the book. “Apparently, it is very interesting to experiment with this text.”

Experimental character and fragmentarity of “AmnesiA” suggest to its creators a new and exciting approach to positioning the project. Website amnezia.in.ua was created especially for this purpose and starting from February 5 every Tuesday and Thursday a new fragment of text, a new painting of the artist, and a new track of OYSoundSystem are published there. All the materials on the website can be easily commented and shared via social networks. Mykhed explained that in such a way “AmnesiA Project” encourages the art consumers to participate in the creation of a joint project and hints that anyone can become an author and co-creator.

For the sake of such experiment, anyone who came to the first presentation of “AmnesiA Project” in Kyiv Small Opera could answer the question in front of a camera: “What event from your life would you like to forget but know that you never will?” Brave souls who dared to share intimate facts, told The Day that took this risky openness as an opportunity for some kind of purification. The presentation of the project not by chance was held in the half-destroyed hall of the Small Opera. Kyiv city authorities are also trying to forget of this cultural institution (used to be the House of Tram Workers), explaining its uncertain status by confusing issues of land ownership. By making their presentation here, the organizers of the project wanted to remind Kyiv residents of this unique building and along with it about dozens of other places that are being destroyed or are no longer cultural centers.

At the present moment only some part of texts, images, and music of the project has been presented to the public. The whole project will be presented in the Small Opera on March 7. At the presentation there will be artists’ paintings, postcards with replicas of these paintings, and a concert of OYSoundSystem. Today it is still difficult to predict whether “AmnesiA Project” will manage to unite music fans, readers, and art connoisseurs, or, moreover, to encourage Ukrainians to reflect on their ability to quickly forget things. However, we can already say that the project presents a very interesting approach to a presentation of a book. “It is a new approach to perception and existence of text in terms of contemporary art,” said Halanevych. “It is an interesting example of how fiction writing can transform in some multi-disciplinary mini-festival.”