Wednesday 3 March 2010

The Invisible Generation in Kiev April 23-25, 2010.

The Invisible Generation is an ongoing contemporary art project that has appeared in different guises in Beijing, Melbourne and Shenzhen. The venues have been carefully selected due to their specific historical contexts and their perceived trajectories into the future. The project takes its starting point in performative traditions, but focuses on practices and events that cross over into other time-based activities, such as sound, film, video, literature, theatre and workshops. The project offers new situations for art and audience to meet outside of where one expects to meet an art piece or performance. The Invisible Generation allows the artists and audience to investigate how art can become a tool to shift our outlook at reality when it appears with an element of surprise.

The following projects will be carried out within the boundaries of The Invisible Generation Kiev in April 23-25, 2010 in collaboration with Les Kurbas Center and other partners:

1. A live performance “Polyethylene”, Volodymyr Karashevskyi

At the center of Kiev (St. Sophia Square) four dancers make a performance with a sound/light
effects, using the products of polyethylene (the area of 12 x 12 m).


2. Video-works.

a) The projection of two video-works by young film-director Oksana Plysyuk "Seasons of the
Year on the Square" (15 min. and 9 min.) about Maydan Square. The first is a visual document about Maydan as an architecture object accompanied by the contemporary Ukrainian poetry (Yuriy Andruhovych) and electronic music by composer Alla Zagaikevych.

And the second film is about political events at Maydan – during the Orange Revolution.

b) Video mix by SAMPLED PICTURES (Oleg Chorny&Gena Khmaruk) + live music composed and performed by Alexander Kokhanovsky


c) Video-works by Huang Xiaopeng.


3. A night performance ‘Lamps’ – by the artists’ group ‘GangDon’ from Cherkassy.

On one of Kiev squares the performers (10 people) carry the lighted lamps on their shoulders in
the form of hat.



4. An action ‘Headless’ by Kiev artists’ collective ‘TanzLaboratorium’.

They drive around a group of strange aliens in a limousine. When the creatures leave the car they are lead by immaculately dressed people and taken around to see several tourist sites of the city.


5. An artistic intervention ‘Flying up sky-scrapers’ by Kiev based artist Oksana Chepelyk.

Chepelyk will release a large number of Chinese paper lanterns in the form of skyscrapers. These will blow away in the Kiev night sky, allowing us to see the calm beauty while reflecting on how real-estate speculation affect to our daily lives.

6. Klas Eriksson. ‘No one likes us - We dont care’.

No one likes us - We dont care - is a performance where Klas Eriksson DJ´s a
whole culture. The culture surrounding football, with focus on the brittish scene. He uses over 200 cd´s with sound (collected from youtube.com) which relates to the culture. Chants, foul language, police reports, brit pop, passion and violence are all live mixed by the artist. During the performance artists like Happy Mondays, Ian Brown, The farm and others will be mixed with actual chants from football terraces in Britain, violence, passion and police reports. For Klas Eriksson the performance is about highlighting the actual supporters, the ones who lives for the culture and their club, the true supporter. He also consider the performance as a methafor for emerging artists in the world of art. In these times the so called "modern football campaign" is
spreading world wide, and along with that the football culture is up for a drastic change, forcing the true supporter away from the terraces. Increasing ticket prices, no foul language, all seated stadiums and fixtures beeing played at noon are some of the changes that the "modern football campaign" are up for. The DJ performance is a statement against the "modern football campaign".

For more on Klas Erikssons practice visit www.klaseriksson.org


7. Three projects by French artist Jean-François Robardet:

a) “SKIP SKIP SKIP” is a sculpture/streaming session during three days in Les Kurbas Center
with Simon Hitziger. Both artists will at the same time in France and Ukraine create the same
unassuming sculptures. The event is streamed everyday on the website performanceseason.com.
The events are reported at night with drawings by Hitziger/Robardet in collaboration with invited
Ukrainian artists.

b) A specially composed song entitled “Caredig” will be played on a local on radio station.

c) “KEN!” is a solo show, elaborated as a duet, based on correspondence with drawings between
curator Yulia Usova and the artist.

8. Pauline Curnier Jardin "Le Salon d'Alone".

A story:
‘Alone is alone in a house, which used to be a veterinary clinic. She is sure about one thing – the only difference between a human being and animals is the language. Often she leaves the building to go out and try to find people with whom she could speak, in order to verify that she is not a horse. While she is out, all the objects of the living-room tell their incredible stories. When she comes back, Alone is always alone’.


A slide-show presents 80 different images of 7 oddities, all objects to whom I gave a personal story to integrate in an metaphysical opera. This piece will be seen in its stage version, the text will be read in live in the context of a slide-play, while it's also an installation. First, the process was to create a stagecraft for a cabinet of curiosities (Wunderkammer), where the objects could be the characters and the narrator of their own life, speaking and singing using "I.." like in most of the opera’s texts. The opera form is a device, where the narration is emphasized by the music and a certain penchant for tragedy or grotesque, which suits perfectly the shapes of my oddities.


… "Alone went out, she doesn’t know us while we are all living all around her in the living-room. Alone is not alone because we are all here, she is one of us when she’s not left"…




9. Private Contractors - Per Hüttner and Olav Westphalen


During three days Private Contractors (Olav Westphalen and Per Hüttner) will offer a free service to the citizens of Kiev. In three different public locations they will set up a vending table and some information placards, offering to censor books and printed matter professionally and free of charge.

10. YOU ARE THE DREAM OF MY REALIZATION - an action in undisclosed locations in central Kiev by Huang Xiaopeng in cooperation with Yuriy Kruchak and Yulia Kostereva

Huang Xiaopeng will distribute posters and pamphlets around Kiev that offer new outlooks on political history and activism. He takes politically charged texts from the communist past and capitalist present that have been google-translated so many times that their message has been totally scrambled. He mixes these with explosive imagery that beckons us to believe that the content is forceful and subversive.