KOLLEKTIVNYE DEYSTVIYA (COLLECTIVE ACTIONS). THE DESCRIPTIONS OF ALL THE ACTIONS, Photo and Video
JOURNEYS TO THE COUNTRYSIDE. VOLUME FIVE
57. RELOCATION OF THE VIEWERS
Prior to the audience’s arrival to the scene of action on the edge of Kievgorodskoe field a construction was installed. It consisted of a vertically mounted metal ring (45 cm in diameter) with two holes drilled in its sides (1.5 in diameter each). Then a red rope (approx. 500 meters long) was arranged in the form of an ellipse on the field, its ends passed through the holes on the ring’s inner side. Throughout the length of the rope several metallic tags with paper labels were attached in various places. On one side of the label there was an inscription “KD. AUDIENCE TRANSLATION”. On the other side: “Kievy Gorky ___ hour ___ minute. 11.6.1989”.
The audience (20 persons in total) were met by N. Panitkov and A. Monastyrski and brought to the field’s center where they were prompted to position themselves against the ring invisible to them (it was approximately 200 meters away). The outer rim of the rope ellipse was some 5-6 meters away from the audience. From that position the viewers could already see the rope, as the grass was short on the field (they could not see the labels, though).
Panitkov and Monastyrski asked the viewers to remain where they were, then detached themselves from the group, turned on a tape recorder (it rested some 10 meters away from the audience; its soundtrack consisted of noises of airplanes flying by; real airplanes were also flying over the field at low altitude) and headed across the field for the metallic ring.
Having approached the ring, Panitkov and Monastyrski took the rope’s end s and while walking in opposite directions along the forest’s edge, started pulling the rope through the ring. In the process of pulling the rope through the holes the metal tags attached to the rope stroke against the ring’s inner rim, came off the rope and fell to the grond.
As soon as Monastyrski and Panitkov had disappeared in the woods (on the audience’s left and right sides respectively) having pulled the whole rope’s length through the ring (when the rope stretched across the ring’s diameter, I. Makarevich cut it with scissors), each of them drew his part of the rope and arranged it on the ground in the form of a coil.
When this part of the action came to an end, E. Elagina who had been residing among the audience turned off the tape recorder and prompted the audience to cross the field and approach the location where the ring was. Behing the ring, at two meters’ distance from it there was S. Romashko with a video camera, shooting through the ring the audience’s movement from its initial position in the field’s center to the location where the ring was fixed with tags lying next to it. The viewers were prompted to collect the tags (17 pieces) and keep them as the action’s factography.
After the tags’ having been collected, Elagina filled in each tag the time of the audience’s approaching the ring (15:20).
Some time later Panitkov and Monastyrski emerged from opposite sides of the forest’s edge and approached the audience, each holding his coil of rope.
Kievy gorky
11st June 1989.
N. Panitkov, A. Monastyrski, S. Romashko, E. Elagina, I. Makarevich, G. Kizewalter, M. K.
V. Sorokin, I. Bakshtein, Yu. Leiderman, M.Chuikova, S. Volkov, Pertsy, E. Bobrinskaya, L. Shmitz, J. Gambrel, E. Petrovskaya, E. Steiner, J.Janecek, A. Alchuk, M. Ryklin + 6 persons
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