BSPH - Re

There is a concept of "as lame as possible" piece. It is a type of a throwaway piece that somehow persists and actually works as a work of art. I've found one of mine. This one follows grand tradition of Lawrence Wiener, Art & Language and Ed Ruscha.

The piece is merely a reference to the location of the definition of the word "Re" in the Modern Ukrainian Dictionary.

It started as a joke. I was at the reading of the "Mindbending verse" (don't ask) and was called out by one of the performers.
I had a couple of minutes before my turn, and i had nothing, i wasn't expecting to do anything.

So i went online - straight to the old Modern Ukrainian Dictionary website. There was a great brainstorm feature - random page. It went straight to "Re". I was like "oh well, i'm guess i'm going to embarrass myself". But a couple of moments later it was "wait a minute, i know".

I wrote down the resulting piece on a napkin and it got torn apart by the pencil - it looked like ragged battlefield white flag.

And then i go to the mic and read the piece and there is silence.
People don't know how to react because a couple of minutes ago they were listening to sonnets and haikus about desolation, contemplaton and the reckless nulliety of the modern age and then this. It was a bit out of the leftfield.

After an awkward silent pause - the hum started. People were like "yeah, that is something". And then there was lots and lots of rustling because people went to their phones to check out whether the poem's statement was correct and they were even more Yeah! That is something!".
The dude who called me out called me a bastard afterwards. It felt earned.

Later this piece was exhibited twice in Lviv and Ternopil and both times people were offended by the piece and asked it to be taken off. Seriously. 

The problem was - none of them was able to explain why this particular piece was offending to them. They just thought it was pointless and thus should not be exhibited. 

Nitzer Ebb performs John Cage's seminal "4'33"

Here's a video of seminal British EBM band Nitzer Ebb performing John Cage's iconic conceptual art opus "4'33". The guys are doing their best with this classic piece. They give their all.

Among other things, this means I have a reason to talk about 4'33 and the trick it manages to pull off.

4'33 is one of those compositions that can't be really ruined. You can't do it wrong by design due to its inherent ambiguity. It works any way you turn it. Sideways, upside down, inside out, backwards - it persists and prospers. Even if you try hard to do mess it up - you will still get an interesting result. That's a testament of John Cage's ability to engage performers and listeners.

On the surface, the composition consists of the musician performing nothing, just sitting around not playing an instrument for a couple of movements.

Some interpret the composition as being silent. But it's not really correct. The thing is - the performance doesn't occur in the vacuum. There is a lot of stuff going on around the place. These things get into the spotlight due to lack of action in the foreground.

Unfortunately, the silence of the composition is perceived as a pretentious gimmick and it completely overshadowed an original intent of the piece.

On the other hand, 4'33 is the composition one needs to endure. And its not an easy thing to do. It is really hard to comprehend negative space, especially when it is superimposed in such manner. The situation generates mildly tickling cognitive dissonance that wreak havoc in the padded cell of the mind.

You get all sorts of thoughts passing through, you start to notice little things. Listening or performing 4'33 is really an eventful experience that is different each time. What is even more fascinating is to reminisce on the listening to 4'33. In this case you get even more zany experience as things blend and bleed through into something completely different.

Poetry time: ЧHh!

This piece was originally made for the typography exhibition back in 2014. It was a handwritten piece at that time.
The original got lost after the exhibition wrapped up, so i did this digital version. It is cleaner and more precise in representing the concept.

The piece itself is a thought experiment in sounding written letters devoid of context.

The thing plays off the idea that ukrainian letter "Ч" and english letter "h" looks a bit same. The middle letter plays with the cognitive dissonance of ukrainian and english letter looking the same but sounding differently. You have english "H" and ukrainian "Н" which sounds like "n" while "Ч" sound like “ch” in english.

As a result, you get this weird written sound that you can't really figure out but instantly recognize.