Sounding the dissolution from a Cosmic Space
(2025)
author(s): Giada Dalla Bonta
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
Whereas the sonic experimentations at the dawn of the October Revolution have been extensively documented, little research has been conducted on practices at the intersection of sound and art during the USSR dissolution. This article explores the political significance of sonic practices –alongside their cultural, artistic, and sensory dimensions– in late Soviet Russia's unofficial art scene, examining the case study of the New Artists group in Leningrad and their shift from mocking avant-garde legacies to a more organically interdisciplinary approach, presumably initiating rave culture in the region. This shift, along with the re-appropriation of cosmism, is framed as a sonic fiction made of music, dance, art, queer inclusivity that aimed at transcending the Iron Curtain and extending conceptually to the Universe. In particular, the paper aims to highlight the decisive influence, often overshadowed by the figure of Novikov, of musicians Valeriy Alakhov and Igor’ Verichev (New Composers) in such evolution by informing the group's poetic strategies and compositions in accordance with their sonic thinking and imagery. The understanding of “togetherness” as constitutive element of late Soviet underground culture and of the hypernormalized official ideology’s de-territorialization (Yurchak 2006) also demonstrates, through J.-L. Nancy’s theory of communal bodies, the role of participatory and corporeal sonic experiences in creating sonic fictions from “interplanetary sounds” able to penetrate socio-cultural dynamics. The artists’ “ubiquitous” (vsyochestvo) principle of absolute synthesis of the arts is thus extended to the realm of sonic materiality, multisensoriality and sonic agency, articulating afresh its appellation of “new avantgarde” of the empire’s dissolution. This article delves into the New Artists' initial evolution before their transition into the more reactionary "New Academy" formation, as some artistic strategies, successfully subversive under Gorbachev, faltered in the post-Soviet landscape and strengthened reactionary forces now intertwined with the ruling power. A forthcoming publication in the Journal of Sonic Studies (Dalla Bontà: 2024) will delve into this subsequent phase during the 1990s, offering insights into the intricate dynamics driving this seemingly contradictory development in the group and in certain figures in the Russian underground scene.
Rethinking the traditional concert format through the lens of Russian mystic composer Nikolai Obukhov
(2022)
author(s): Carlota Carvalho
published in: KC Research Portal
Born in 1892, composer Nikolai Obukhov belongs to the Russian avant-garde generation and was one of the pioneers in experimenting with twelve-tone systems, notation, and electronic instruments. He stands out from his contemporaries having inherited not only some aspects of Alexander Scriabin’s musical style, but, most prominently, the Russian symbolist belief in transcendence and collective spiritual uplifting through the performative act as well. The metaphysical substance and religious symbolism of Obukhov’s body of work reveals itself as a very rich and exciting source of inspiration for performers today.
In this exposition I analyze the most relevant features of Nikolai Obukhov’s aesthetic, from his conception of the total work of art, to his harmonic language and annotations on the score, contextualizing them in the broader cultural and philosophical panorama of Russian Symbolism. I focus on understanding the social function of musical performance, and by conceptualizing certain basic principles, I shape my own performative approach to Nikolai Obukhov’s solo piano works. In the creative process of building a more holistic performance practice inspired by Russian Symbolism, the role of the modern performer expands from one of mere executor to the curator of an experience both for themself and for their audience. With this research I intend to encourage the musical community to reflect on our current relation with performance, to experiment with different concert formats, and to realize that we too, like the artistic community of Russians mystics, can project our own hopes about the future of civilization in our performance practices.