Verlag Walthe Herb - Buchhandlung Walther König

18 x 22,5 cm, 96 pages,
60 b/w illustrations.
Softcover
English
978-3-86560-706-5
€ 22,– / chf 39,–
Art / Kunst
November 2009
Andrei Smirnov, born and lives in
Syktyvkar (Russia). Interdisciplinary
artist, author, curator, instrument
builder and educator.
Matt Price is an editor, writer and
curator based in Birmingham and
London. He started his career as an
editor for Hans Ulrich Obrist before
being appointed Managing Editor of
Flash Art International, Milan.
Jeremy Deller, born 1966 in London,
studied History of Art at the Courtauld
Institute of Art. Deller won
the Turner Prize in 2004 for Memory
Bucket—a documentary about
Crawford, Texas and the siege in Waco.
Sound in Z is developed from an
exhibition of the same name at the
Palais de Tokyo, Paris, in 2008.
42 herbst / fall 2009
Andrei Smirnov.
Sound in Z. Experiments in sound and electronic music
in early 20th-century Russia
Edited by Matt Price and David Rogerson
Foreword by Jeremy Deller. Text by Andrei Smirnov
Russia, 1917—inspired by revolutionary ideas, artists and enthusiasts developed innumerable
musical inventions, instruments and ideas often long ahead of their time—a
culture that was to be cut off in its prime as it collided with the totalitarian state of
the 1930s. Smirnov’s account of the period offers an engaging introduction to some of
the key fi gures and their work, including Arseny Avraamov’s open-air performance of
1922 featuring the Caspian fl otilla, artillery guns, hydroplanes and all the town’s factory
sirens, and Alexei Gastev, the polymath who coined the term ‘bio-mechanics’. Shedding
new light on better-known fi gures such as Leon Theremin (inventor of the world’s fi rst
electronic musical instrument, the Theremin), the publication also investigates the work
of a number of pioneers of electronic sound tracks using ‘graphical sound’ techniques.
Sound in Z documents an extraordinary and largely forgotten chapter in the history of
music and audio technology.
Sound in Z dokumentiert ein außergewöhnlich innovatives, nahezu vergessenenes
Kapitel der Geschichte der Musik und Soundtechnik. Schauplatz ist Russland, 1917:
Von revolutionären Ideen getragen kam es zu zahlreichen musikalischen Erfi ndungen,
neuen Instrumenten und visionären Ansätzen, die ihrer Zeit weit voraus waren. Der
Autor – zugleich Künstler, Forscher und Entwickler von elektronischen Musikinstrumenten
– Andrei Smirnov führt in die Schlüsselfi guren dieser Zeit und ihre wegweisenden
Arbeiten ein. Sei es in Arseny Avraamovs Freiluft-Performance von 1922,
bei der Schiffssirenen, Artilleriekanonen, Bus- und Autohupen und die Fabriksirenen
einer Stadt am Kaspischen Meer zu einem gewaltigen Orchester formiert wurden
oder etwa in Alexei Gastevs „Biomechanik“. Zudem eröffnet Smirnov einen neuen
Blick auf den bekannten Erfi nder elektronischer Instrumente, Leon Theremin, aber
auch auf jene Pioniere, die mit ihrer „grafi schen Soundtechnik“ außergewöhnliche
elektronische Soundtracks geschaffen haben.
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