On a white wall, fragments of the CAG video "DEPOT" from 1990* were shown for exactly 30 minutes. On the floor below the projection, pages of A4 print-outs from the first and second volumes of the Collective Actions Group documentation ("Trips out of Town") were laid out in the form of a rectangle with a surface area approximately equal to that of the projection. Each sheet was printed recto only and placed with the blank (white) side up.
During the video projection, the three organizers read the English description texts from several previous actions. These actions had been selected for their relationship to the topic of "Walking and Sound". The reading was performed aloud through three microphones placed on one side of the white paper field. In this way, the reading was superimposed over the recorded sound in the video, meaning that sometimes the text was legible and sometimes was obscured by the sound of the video.
After the reading of the description texts, the audience was invited to each take one A4 sheet from the paper rectangle on the floor, and to go with it to the sound desk where S. Hänsgen signed the sheet with the abbreviation CAG (Collective Actions Group) on behalf of the group as well as the date of the action. The signed sheets were subsequently returned to the spectators as the action's factography.
April 29, 2022
Brussels, Atoma, Oscillation Festival
Sabine Hänsgen, Andrei Monastyrski, Henry Andersen, Elena Biserna
(Photo: Alisa Oleva, Camille Poitevin, fabonthemoon; Video: Amar Ruiz)
* The DEPOT video was recorded at the Depot station, Savelovskaya railway, on January 30, 1990 for AM`s unrealized installation "Journey to the West".
This station had been selected for the installation because during the 1970s it was the point via which participants of CAG actions would reach Kiovogorskoe field. From the station, participants would walk 2.42 km in a straight line through woods and fields to reach the field.
During the video recording from time to time texts were read offscreen from the Handbook of Snow—edited by D.M. Gray and D. Kh. Male, translated from English by V.M. Kotlyakov, Leningrad, Gidrometeoizdat 1986. The circulation of the book is 6810 copies. The book has three parts: Part I: Snow and Environment. Part II: Snow Precipitation and Snow Coverage. Part III: Snow and Technology.
The texts were read in Russian by A. Monastyrski in German by S. Hänsgen, and in English by G. Kizevalter.