Интервью с Денисом Переваловым на русском языке можно прочесть по ссылке.
The interview was conducted by Ekaterina Zharinova via Zoom on February 1, 2022. The interview transcript was created by Daria Kuznetsova on February 2, 2022. Translated from Russian into English by Karina Sokolova on February 11, 2022. Published on February 19, 2023.
Denis Perevalov, a media artist, scientist and software engineer who’s done a massive amount of projects throughout his career. In the years 2013-2017, I was lucky to work closely with Denis on a number of dance performances with the use of interactive digital technologies, among which were “Contours of Sound” (2013) and “Inside the Chain” (2016). In that same period, we held several laboratories on movement and sound and delivered a few lectures at Yekaterinburg universities.
Performance Board Game. One-day exhibition (das)GIFT.
Coworking Salt. 5 December 2013.
The text of the interview was saved as in real conversation; it was just slightly edited.
Why did you decide to engage in science?
As a kid, I studied not only science, but also music, and I actually liked computers. When I entered the university, it turned out there were things that you’ll never be able to grasp, even if you know programming/coding. Such things as general topology, for instance. I realised it in my freshman or sophomore year and decided that it would indeed be interesting to study some deeper subjects and then catch up with programming later, and that’s how it worked, in the end. That is why I delved into theoretical science, mathematics, abstract math, while at the university. And it did in fact prove to be complicated and captivating. And after that, when I experienced this sort of depth, I devoted a certain period of time, a few years, I would say, to doing those things. But, anyhow, then I went back to what I’d done before and became a programmer, after all, a software engineer- with a scientific background, though.
There is a stereotype that mathematics is a “rigid” subject. But we know this is not so.
Well, especially functional analysis and general topology are about grasping the impalpable. For example, how can you grasp anything about a space where you cannot build geometrical structures, where there is no such notion as geometry, but only the notion of closeness of points, and may be some other things. You could draw some curves and understand something this way. I see something similarly elusive in it as in studying jellyfishes. I mean, a jellyfish is rather amorphous. How can you decompose it? If we cut it, it’ll turn into a few shreds, so it is impossible to study it like that. That’s why jellyfishes must be studied as a whole. Same thing here. We could cut space in pieces, but it won’t give us the understanding of its structure. And, yes, I guess there are such stereotypes arising from the old, “ancient” math of the XVIII-XIX centuries which indeed studied steam machines and mechanisms, like Chebyshev or some others. And, of course, there is still this stereotype from the old days.
You are not involved in science any longer?
I work at a department in charge of developments, so I do a kind of research all the time, but it is not so much connected with theoretical science, but rather with technology, concepts that have something to do with the game industry. It means, this is not programming in its usual sense, but it is more of a research process and that is why I enjoy it. For example, I could write just a few lines of code in a week and it’ll be enough, because these lines are the result of a long research. If you simply prove a theorem in regular math, and that’s your result, here your result is, say, several lines of code.
About research. I talked to computer science students, and they always need to have a particular goal to pursue in their research. When you and I combined dance and digital technology we researched what could come out of such a combination, and we had no particular goal.
In fact, these are just different approaches. I’m now also studying online at the Rodchenko Art School with Alexei Shulgin as my teacher, and we address these issues. It now feels that art is being institutionalised. There are attempts to make as if a scientific institution out of it, which would imply such method of research, but not everybody agrees with it. So, our slightly different approach where we look into what can come out as a result, and we look at it without a final goal, is another message, to my mind, which is different from the nowadays’ overall agenda which is, like, “let’s open departments of arts, of this and that, at all universities, and have people getting PhDs.” Then a question arises- what is considered a PhD? Well, a research, probably. So, this pile of questions leads to a situation where people start setting such goals even in the framework of a performance, as if it were some kind of a laboratory research. So, we may like it or not, but, unfortunately, that’s the case. To my mind, if we can have freedom not being tied by any grants, and make things differently, this is our huge advantage.
Yes, for me what we did was experimental research.
Yes, language defines consciousness. It’s just that back then this subject of art as research was raised, and now it has crystallised. And the idea of calling art a research has been there for a long time, because everyone wants to put it within clear lines. Writing- defending, writing- defending.
How did you transform from being a scientist into being an artist? What influenced this transformation?
At some point you may feel a kind of a ceiling in the facets of scientific research, for example. Let’s assume you want to do something for the fun’s sake, I mean, do not what is canonically required, but go beyond and do something expressly anti-scientific, or without any theoretical or practical return, or something really experimental. In this case, you need to either become an inventor or, may be, engage in art. Art allows doing it. At least, when it hasn’t crystallized into an institution yet, it is acceptable and legitimate to experiment in it like that. So, for me my switching to art was simply the way to invent something a bit, without the risk of being judged for doing something beyond the system, because in art almost anything is legitimate. Especially destroying taboos. But, surprisingly, in art it is easier to destroy taboos having to do with sex, for instance, with naked body images, or destroying body parts, so these things are accepted there. Other sort of taboos connected with technological art, however, are much tougher. This is a paradox we discovered later- that technological art, technology in art is not accepted with the same excitement as performances involving, say, blood letting.
Please, explain more.
The media art (the technological art you and I did) is much less represented. Meaning, it exists, it takes up its niche, but large galleries and all other places just recently started considering videogames, for instance, to be art. There were many questions to video art, even though it is an out-of-date, that is, an “ancient” area. There are discussions going on about whether the media art has had its “golden age,” or it never happened, and whether it’ll happen at some point. This is a rhetorical question. So, my feeling is it hasn’t and it probably won’t, for now, because regular art sold in galleries and expensive auctions, has nothing to do with technology. Of course, we are witnessing a shift, everything is changing, the gallery owners see that it is impossible to ignore the glitch art and some other things. There are these funny stories when all of a sudden a glitch is exhibited at some biennial, even though it’s like 20 years old, but it is presented as something innovative in art. What I mean to say is that it seems to us, to me, in particular, that there is a lot of media art around, because I’m involved in this sphere, but from the point of view of the rest of the contemporary art, there is not so much of it, in fact.
Why did you take up dance projects? Was it because I offered dance?
Right, people always infect each other with what we’re passionate about. I guess it was somehow logical after my participation in performances. So, just when a person is engaged in some specific environment… If you remember, I didn’t even call myself an artist in the very beginning. And now I once again don’t often call myself like that. It comes and it goes. But, having worked with artists…it’s like “Who keeps company with a wolf, will learn to howl.” This proverb is very capacious. If you are constantly among people and they all start moving and doing performances, it just becomes natural. Not a passionate desire, but just a natural thing. As when something keeps going on around you, like someone singing or whistling something to himself, you will clearly start whistling it to yourself at some point. That’s the way life goes. Unless you are being deliberately antagonistic, deciding that no way, anything but not this, because you’ve had enough of it. But I’m not like that, so.
In my opinion, interactive installations cry out for dance.
Yes, I agree that movements of a professional dancer allow for bringing the interaction to a totally different level, for sure. Because when regular visitors come up and wave with, say, one arm and can’t do anything, it is one thing, but when a professional who is able to move his entire body comes up, this, of course, creates a completely new quality of effect (the system’s behaviour in general).
Was it right calling our performance “Contours of Sound”? How were sound and movement connected in that work?
A title is not always supposed to be straightforward. What would make a better title? In that second version which we presented at the “Verkh-Isetskiy” Cultural & Arts Centre [in September 2013], there were sounds just as you were moving, so the movements of your body contours were being captured and transformed into sounds. Well, it wasn’t like that in the very first version [at the National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA) in June], even though it was planned, but we didn’t make it on time, as far as I remember, we only had the first part in it. While in the second version there was quite a long part which actually sounded in accordance with your body contour’s moves. It was the black&white part. I can’t remember now if it was only the silhouette or the inner part as well, I think it worked differently in different settings, but the idea was that there were particles flying off from your movements, and those particles created wind and sea noises.
It means we had two sources of sound. Tatiana [Komarova] was also managing soundtracks during the performance.
She was running the background music which created a special audio atmosphere, but we put sounds generating from your movements over that background. So that’s what we had. You probably only remember the first one we held at the NCCA, but the second performance was the main one.
I guess so. My impression from the very first performance was that the images dominated and hindered all other elements in terms of impact on the audience.
Could be. Well, that’s because a straightforward sonification of movement- and we held laboratories later [“Movement and Sound”]- it turned out it’s not that much of interest. Frankly speaking, that’s the point. We researched it for a few years afterwards. And the research demonstrated that it’s not too interesting.
This is also a result. How come you decided to start performing?
This happened very naturally. My performance with Tatiana [Prosto], for example, where I wore a crazy doctor’s costume, I even danced a bit in it, it was in Gelendzhik. And the initial reason was that I had a bit more free time after I’d moved to Tver. After having lived here for a couple of weeks I thought what else I might do and that maybe I should take dance classes. So, I started taking dance classes. My teacher Evgeniy asked me what I was learning how to dance for, and I said: “I could perform somewhere.” And since a joint performance with Tatiana came along, we prepared a two-minute weird dance with a mask. This, as always, took me completely out of my comfort zone. It was a truly shocking experience. It’s one thing turning knobs, operating videos, and it’s another thing when you sing, but when you dance- to me, that was the first shock. But at the same time, it was a sort of an initiation ritual, because after that I already had a a bit more relaxed attitude to things like that. I’m glad I was wearing a mask so that no one would see my pale frightened face. In fact, I would call it a very traumatic experience, but I knew I had to face it at some point.
What about the performance at Nastya Bogomolova’s Kvartirale*?
We didn’t dance there, we were performing being in costumes. That was a show, not dance. A performance, yes. But more of a science art thing. We charged bottles with frequencies. A viewer would sit, we would scan his or her bodily frequencies with a laser beam and then directed them in the form of electromagnetic field to a bottle filled with nettle boil. They then could wash their hair with it. This substance would make the hair clean because it was synchronised with your vibrations. It is very healthy for your hair.
*I’m talking about the Innohair performance made by Denis Perevalov in collaboration with Anastasia Krokhaleva (Endless Attractions Museum) and presented at the First Ural Kvartirale (t.me/kvartirale).
I understand it was fun and was done as a joke, but what was the sense of that performance? Were you mocking at the blind faith in science?
Rather, we were mocking at the science art genre. If there are artists in robes and some appliances, the audience accepts enthusiastically any sort of speculations, and it might be just a joke, but you can’t tell for sure from the description. But, in general, it was a direct reference to Chumak and his water charging.
How are you collaborating with Nastya [Krokhaleva]* now?
For instance, there was the UNDARK festival for which I made the “Bird carousel” art object, I wrote the audio for it, meaning I generated it with a neuronet. Thus, I participated in it remotely. There’s now an exhibition open at the Multimedia Art Museum in Moscow. Our “bell” is exhibited there- – the “Cosmovibrationum” project. I’m not far from Moscow now and I provide technical support for the installation, I travel there, if I have to. But in general, I’m taking rest from big art at the moment, so to speak. In the sense that I do less works, but they may be yet more powerful, more substantial. But I do not have a constant flow of projects. At the moment I’m interested in creating games, since I’m working for a game company. I’m interested in inventing musical instruments. So, I guess I’m deviating from the contemporary art as it is, but I’m still following my interests.
*Denis Perevalov has collaborated with Anastasia Krokhaleva since 2017, their joint art project is called the Endless Attractions Museum.
I remember you had engaged in musical instruments even before you started doing performances [before 2013].
Yes, this is my all-time interest. But right now, Timur Babanin and I are making another sort of instrument- not some wild or trash sort of thing, but a real instrument that regular musicians could actually use, not for freaks, that is.
Oh, by the way, why have you done so many wild things? Just for the fun’s sake?
It probably depends on whom I’m surrounded by. I’m now surrounded by serious guys from a serious game company and I have to be thinking about a normal computer game. I’m now interacting with Timur Babanin with whom, as well as with Darya Kostina, we did the “T-Issue Sound.” He turned out to be an engineer and we’re making a serious instrument together. I rarely do anything on my own. May be, because it doesn’t seem so interesting to me. I mean, if there’s a person who balances me, I come up with something not so wild.
Just recently, having worked at a serious company, I have come to the conclusion that, just the way I worked with you, I’m probably more keen on being a technical specialist who makes his bit very well, but is not the super-creator who invents the whole thing. I have found out that it may indeed be satisfying and be something I enjoy. That’s a paradox. I mean, having tried making objects and seen that I was only getting some weird staff, I began taking it easy. I guess I just like upgrading installations or helping someone else make them. That’s exactly what I’m doing now.
It seems to me development has a wave-like nature. I’ve actually learned the history of the contemporary art, some media art practices at the Rodchenko Art School. And, having learned that, for some reason I’ve realised that my place is probably not among artists, but, rather, among some technical specialists. And that’s OK.
It’s curious. In the performances we co-created I felt your influence on the way our visuals would look was very strong, and that you manifested yourself as an artist a lot.
Yes. But I think it depends on the way you position yourself. If I feel I’m an artist, then yes. And if I feel I’m a technical specialist who’s been asked for assistance, that’s another sort of approach.
There’s a notion about our sphere that dance is not a serious thing, you can’t make money with it, and parents do not often support this career choice.
I would say, this holds true for any sphere, in fact. In singing, too. My wife, for example, works as a professional singer now. The same thing happens in programming. I mean, if a person started studying coding at the age of nine, it doesn’t necessarily mean that he/she/they’ll become a software engineer. I think any area of activity might be viewed as not reliable at the initial stage. When someone starts a business, will it be a success or not. So, my opinion about dance, in particular, is that if you practise it since when you’re a child, it forms your mental health, the way you manage your body, it shapes your physique and overall muscle tone. And, I think, in this sense, dance is healthier than sitting at the computer or coding. On the other hand, it of course forms different brain structures, and becoming a software engineer is a challenge for the one who practises dance, while it is a challenge for a software engineer to become a professional dancer. Sitting and coding makes my arms always be in their default state- a sort of a reptilian, and it is really noticeable and distracting in dance. So, I struggle with some issues which I wouldn’t have if I had been doing dance since childhood, for example.
Maybe making installations is more financially beneficial? When we did performances it wasn’t profitable obviously.
When you provide technical assistance for making installations you do it for money. And if you’re making your own installations, it’s much costlier than performances. In a performance you only need a laptop and a projector. And, as far as installations go, you have to actually construct something. It implies spending hundreds of thousands of roubles, in fact.
I wonder if Sveta [Perevalova — Denis’ wife] is looking towards postmodernism yet? Or what can you refer the things you do as an artist to?
No, she is a conservatory graduate. They are primarily taught there that a master is a craftsman, first of all, and in order to diverge from canons you must acquire some skills first. That’s why their approach is, like, we’ll teach you the mastery and then it’s up to you what you do with it. But, having learned the mastery she realised that being a master is in itself interesting. So, she’s mastering the process of singing in the academic sense. And she truly enjoys it. Now she’s considering if she should pass this experience to others. And, as you see, I’m also turning away a little bit from..well, I wouldn’t any longer call it post-modernism, it’s more about metamodernism now, the metamodernism age. It means oscillations between post-modernism, modernism and, so, it’s an uncertainty zone, where something new may be created, but.. I think these are two opposite poles- modernism and post-modernism. Modernism is about the idea that all is unified, it implies one canon and direction. Postmodernism is about no canons at all, everything is completely subjective. And the truth is fluctuant, different works of the same author may refer to modernism or postmodernism. This endless fluctuation is referred to as metamodernism now. But this title is also being criticised, because it is now considered that the emphasis has shifted from arguing about what “-ism” we’re witnessing now, to what the art is in general, and how it is associated with practice. So, currently, the emphasis from studying the “-ism” and metamodernism has shifted to somewhere else. For instance, the Anthropocene art, implying that humans have formed a whole geological era. But this is also being criticised. As if the agenda is different now- posthumanism, the art in which non-human agents play the role, they either make art or art is made for them. I mean, art is really fluctuant nowadays.
Exactly. For some reason I’ve also remembered about life as art…
Yes. We could radicalize, but we’re talking about such general things, which, in fact, do not add anything new to our understanding of life. We could say everything is art or that art is nothing, but these are just phrases thrown in the air. Interest emerges when we have something specific, when we say that art fluctuates from modernism and postpodernism, then there is a lead. While “everything is art”- is too much of a general answer which doesn’t give us anything new. It was one thing when the human was identified with the entire world. But when the human said there’s a division into “us” and the outer world, it has given food for thought. Same here. If we say everything is unified, we unite it all, we most likely lose the idea.
Do you teach now?
I’m now teaching online technological basics of interactive art at the Rodchenko Art School. That’s my specialty. So, this is what I’m actually doing. That’s what I teach at Alexei Shulgin’s class.
Have you got a specific teaching philosophy? A mission, maybe, or some specific approach?
I wish there was more of such technological, digital media art. So that not the whole world would make installations with sticks and shredded fabrics and state that it is a very conceptual thing. If it is connected with modern technology, this would be great. But I like physicality. There’s of course a tendency for blockchain, NFT. This is too abstract, to my mind. I’d like people to create audio sculptures, some interesting physical installations. Because, to me, this is the art of the future. The Media Art Museum in Moscow is now hosting the “Art for the Future” exhibition, a huge biennial located on eight floors. Our interactive “bell” was presented there. I also helped making one more installation there. That is what future is for me. There is a large number of technological works there that do something or interact somehow, and this is great. If you want the future you want to come- do something. And I’m glad that my students and graduates make this sort of works, as opposed to simply laying out some conceptual things out of shreds with long descriptions.
What is blockchain?
This is a thing associated with cryptocurrency, it means storage of transactions records in the system, smart-contracts, NFT, OpenSea.
They’ve been selling such art projects since 2017. It is already considered out-of-date. But there’s a new spin now which has to do with smart-contracts and art collections on sale. So, you may say this is not art, but you can’t ignore that as a phenomenon. For example, there are growing crystals there which grow after each resale. Isn’t it art? And people collect such crystals. And, interestingly, the growth depends on who has bought them.
What are your plans for the future?
The main thing for me now is the new project- Katerina Kuznetsova, an ethnographer, Valeria Kuznetsova and I have opened an Instagram channel and a Telegram channel about buffoonery (Russian skomorokh culture). The idea is to explore the strategies of buffoonery and draw a parallel with contemporary art. I had an insight that buffoonery and contemporary art are closely related from the conceptional point of view. It’s just that the first one was 500 years ago, and the other one is happening now. And different notions, such as “yurodivy” (“fool-for-Christ”), “otherness,” “queerness” feel similar to me. And also one of the purposes on that portal is to test my old hypothesis about the Ural origin of buffoonery basing on the fact that when skomorokhs got prohibited they were exiled to the Urals. We had Kirsha Danilov who compiled a collection of humorous folksongs. We had the “Ural Dumplings,” the Old Man Bukashkin, and all those coming from the Urals have something to do with amusement, buffoonery. So that’s my hypothesis. It might get verified or not, so this portal is my current activity.
Skomorokhs are strolling entertainers?
Yes. They existed before the adoption of Christianity. They participated in rituals, for example, danced on graves. When Christianity came to Russia they got more in charge of the entertaining industry. They were also mocking at the church, government by demonstrating some of their defects in a theatrical form. They were also officially accused of participating in orgies. Meaning they were much into debauchery. It wasn’t of course legitimate for the church. They were prohibited in the XVII century, their instruments were burnt, and they were exiled, so, all was done to suppress them. And today the contemporary artists who dare to express some critical opinions, and who dare to do some things that seem weird to the public…So, I do see a direct analogy. Same strategies. To entertain, to frighten, to make laugh. Just like the skomorokhs. They are frightening and funny at the same time.
So, it is not associated with the technological aspect?
Why not? This is the beginning, to study the history, but cyber-buffoonery is…I mean, if we transcend it to the present day, skomorokhs do not need to wear jester hats, naturally. What gadgets they’ll have? Would they make their musical instruments out of tires? That is the question- to draw parallels, to try to imagine the neo-buffoonery, the way it would look now. There was a performance on buffoonery at GES-2 [House of Culture] (hydroelectric station) a week ago, so I’m not the only one who’s come up with the subject of buffoonery now.
Eka Zharinova 