MARINA KOLDOBSKAYA

The viewer is going through a long semi-dark corridor and suddenly right nearby somebody's breathing, heavy and powerful. It's the breathing of an invisible giant. Somewhat farther along, there are sighs of a sleeping child, easy and peaceful. Still farther, some old and, apparently, sick person is wheezing. The exiting viewer is accompanied by a deep sigh of relief. These sounds act as a reminder: We are here, we are always here, we are right next to you. Who are they, the invisible ones? Genii loci? Prisoners of an old fortress? Bogeymen, wood goblins, poltergeists? Inhabitants of our memory? An elementary audio recording awakens ancient animism in the soul of a modern person - everybody is alive; everything is alive.

First machines intimidated. A mass of inanimate metal, arranged in an inexplicable fashion, moved on its own, clanged, rattled, crushed and squashed.
That thing, endowed with characteristics of a living being, did not have a common language with humans, and, while controlling it, its creator vaguely realized that his power over his creation was illusory. The revolt of machines, machinocracy, overtaking of the planet by machines, doom of mankind – such grim fantasies were brought about by the view of a conveyor belt, a locomotive, a turbo, or a cannon. Approximately the same feelings are brought about by the protozoa. The point is not that they spray with venom, lash with stingers or entwine with flagella. We can do it as well. The point is that it is impossible to negotiate with them. The program that is built into them by nature, does not respond.
The authors of Protozoa deprived their primitive “robot” of displays, buttons or control panels – the communication adornments that give the user an illusion of control – and left the creator one on one with the tongueless creature.

The interactive artwork “DRUMPAINTING” transforms live sound into moving image, realizing an idea of “colour music” on a modern technological level. Through a computer system devised and engineered by artists at CYLAND Media Lab, viewers play on a drum set to produce a visual unique to and created by their musical performance. As adaptable to any rhythm as it is to any off-rhythm notes, “DRUMPAINTING” has no restrictions in its ability to generate unlimited variations unique to each individual’s own beat.