А. Монастырский, Н. Панитков, И. Макаревич, Е. Елагина, С ...

August 23 rd 1999
A. Monastyrski, S. Romashko, S. Hänsgen, M. Konstantinova
VOLUME EIGHT
87. FISHERMAN
This performance consisted of two parts. The first part took place at A.M.‘s apartment on the 28th of
February 2000 (without viewers). For 40 minutes A.M and N.P. recorded dialogue on two tape-recorders,
in which they discussed the plan of the ―Fisherman‖ performance proposed by A.M. Panitkov wasn‘t
aware of A.M.‘s plan, so he offered one alteration and some ideas that were discussed during the
conversation. The recording was done in such a way that during Monastyrski‘s speech Panitkov put his
tape-recorder in the ―play‖ mode, and Monastyrski put his tape-recorder in the ―record‖ mode. And vice
versa – when Panitkov spoke, Monastyrski put his tape-recorder in the ―play‖ mode and Panitkov in the
―record‖ mode. Thereby two recordings were made – one had only Monastyrski‘s speech with such
pauses in it that matched Panitkov‘s part in the conversation, another – only Panitkov‘s speech with
pauses that matched the time of Monastyrski‘s speech.
After this recording A.M and N.P. listened to the two tape recordings of the discussion of the plan for the
―Fisherman‖ performance. However, because of differences between the tape-recorders, and because it
was impossible to synchronize the process absolutely – the timing of these two recordings was relatively
disjointed: sometimes the voices superimposed each other, etc. So it was decided to synchronize the two
recordings using a computer program. S.Zagnij did this a few days later using a ‗Cool Edit‘ program.
After the tracks had been synchronized and digitalized, they were again recorded onto an analogue
medium – these cassettes were then used in the second part of the performance. The second - ―field‖ part
of the ―Fisherman‖ performance took place on the 20 th of March 2000, in the presence of viewers.
Before the viewers (17 persons) arrived on the scene, the organizers laid out on the snow two white cords,
parallel to each other and spread across the field – from one side of the forest to another. The length of the
cords was approximately 400 meters, the distance from one cord to another – 6-8 meters.
At the end of the cord (to the right of the viewer‘s position) was attached a red plastic sledge, to the end
of the other cord – a blue plastic sledge.
After this the organizers returned to the initial (viewers) position that was in the centre of the field, at a
distance of about 6-8 meters from the closest cord, and they held tape recorders and waited for the
viewers‘ arrival.
When the viewers arrived, and had walked half of the way towards the performance scene (the whole
distance was 300-350 meters), Panitkov and Monastyrski simultaneously put their tape-recorders in the
―play‖ mode (Panitkov had a tape-recorder with Monastyrski‘s speech and vice versa) and they started to
walk in different directions: Panitkov walked left (from the viewers point of view) towards the forest,
where the blue sledge was located, Monastyrski walked right towards the forest and the red sledge.
The tape-recorders (now playing the tape recordings) were placed on the sledges and Panitkov (with the
help of M.Konstantinova) and Monastyrski (with the help of S.Romashko) began slowly pulling the cords
with the sledges and tape-recorders towards themselves.
And so the sledges containing the tape-recorders went past the viewers down the snow-covered field: at
first the sledges moved towards each other (the red sledge from the right, close to the viewers, the blue –
from the left far from the viewers); then, after the sledges passed the point of optical ―intersection‖ (not
exactly parallel to the viewers, but slightly to the side), they started to move in opposite directions, until
they disappeared into an ―invisibility zone‖ – the red sledge to the left side of viewers, the blue – to the
right. The time it took to move the sledges was about 10 minutes.
Because the area of audibility was narrow (by reason of distance, wind, etc.) the viewers could catch only
a few phrases from A.M. –N.P‘s dialogue when the sledges moved nearby (meaning that from 40 minutes
of dialogue only 10 minutes were used in the ―field‖ part of the performance, and the majority of it
occurred in an ―inaudible zone‖ of performance – to the left and to the right side of the viewers).
Then Panitkov pulled the red sledge with the tape-recorder (contained the cassette with his speech)
towards himself, he removed the tape-recorder from the sledge, turned it off, and took the cassette out and