Ruidos y susurros de las vanguardias - Medialab Prado

For this exhibition we have “prepared" a machine from the 1970's, from the world
of the printer press, called Ordinella, taken from the city to the countryside, a
modest ode to Russolo's thoughts. At the same time it refers to the inheritance of
American composer John Cage, who for us, although not associated in general
with Russolo, means the bridge between futurists and the modern age. In 1937 he
gave a lecture entitled “The Future of Music: Credo "[ 5]:
““Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs
us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating. The sound of a truck at fifty miles per
hour. Static between the stations. Rain…….. If this word “music” is sacred and
reserved for eighteenth- and nineteenth century instruments, we can substitute a
more meaningful term: organization of sound.” ).”
Miguel Molina
Cubofuturism and productivism (1910-1930)
Two weeks after Marinetti's futurist manifesto was published in the newspaper Le
Figaro (20-02-1909), it was reviewed in a Russian newspaper; but it was not until
1910 when different movements under this influence were promoted:
Cubofuturism (1910) with the participation of Maiakovski, Chlebnikov and the
Burliuk brothers; Egofuturism (1911) by Severjanin and Ivan Ignatiev; Rayonism
(1913) by Larionov and Goncharova; Psycho-futurism (1914), Mezonìn Poèzii,
Centrifuga (1913) by Pasternak, Aseiev and Bovrov; among others. Later on, with
the Russian Revolution, futurists form the KOMFUT ("Collective of Comunists-
Futurists"), as they do not adhere so much to the new changes, but claim that "it is
our Revolution" (in words of Maiakovski), defending the work of the artist in the
factories and the dissolution of art and life in the new communist society. This
position will be radicalized with the Productivism (1920), which claims the
disappearance of the artist and its role of specialist, because any worker should
become a creator not alienated with his work.
In spite of this connection with the Italian futurism, it contains some differences
that became evident during Marinetti's visit to Russia (1914), where after a few
lectures arouse the Russian futurists' rejection. Because they did not share the
exaltation of bellicism and Italian middle class nationalism, and were more
identified with left-wing revolutionary ideas, in defense of the democratization of
art by means of its presence on the street and propaganda and agitation means:
"our brushes are the streets and our palettes the public squares". They gathered
in public places, like the "Futurist Cabaret 13" or the "Stray Dog Café" with poem
readings, and they also walked around the streets with their faces painted and
provoking clothes with radishes or spoons in their button holes. They attacked the
literary and artistic past of the "good sense" and the "good taste", or the musical
symbolism of a Rachmaninov; proposing in their first futurist manifesto a "Slap in
the Face of Public Taste" (1912) that "You have to shout instead of humming, you
have to roll the drums instead of singing to sleep" and in their renovation of
language "(…)the rays of the new future beauty of the independent word are
already shining for the first time, ".
Precisely, in this connection it appears one of its contributions to the field of
phonetic poetry, which they called Zaum or Trans-mental Language (or trans-
- 152 -
rational). The term coined by Alexei Kruchenij claimed that the artist could not be
forced to express in a common language, but it had to be free in "a personal
language (the creator is an individual), a language without a defined sense (not
fixed), transmental". Therefore, there were two types of language: rational
common language (subject to extralinguistic rules) and the language selfsufficient
transrational (determined by its own rules) "whose words do not have a
specific meaning". The semantics of the syntax could be freed by constructing the
words invented by its sonority (sound occupies a first plane in poetry), including
many neologisms that remind other languages, in an attempt to search for the
original roots of the language (hence the relation of Zaum with the research of the
linguistic circle of the Russian Formalism remained). Different authors like Viril
Zdanevich, Vasili Kamenski or Chlebnicov practiced Zaum poetry (although
Maiakovski defended it, he never wrote any transrational poem), and gave each
one of them a different conception: "(…) for Krucenich it was a free combination,
although emotionally expressive, of sounds, lacking an absolute meaning; for
Chlebnicov, it was the most elementary meaning, expressed in the purest and
most direct way". This latter created a whole series of imaginary languages:
language of the "stars", "Gods", "birds" or "sound-painting".
In our the research group we believed it was necessary to emphasize this, but
trying to interpret unpublished zaum poems by unpublished authors and also to
publish some historical recordings by these poets that have not been published
on CD. From the former, we have preferred to include the contribution of relevant
female artists in the Russian and Soviet avant-garde, who wrote zaum poems
and have not been taken into consideration: for example, Olga Rozanova (poet
and futurist and suprematist painter later) and Varvara Stepanova (key artist
together with her husband Rodchenko from the Productivist movement). From
Stepanova, it is noteworthy her painting-sound-poems based on her books of
non-objective poems "Rtny Khomle" and "Zigra Ar", both written in 1918; with the
intention to introduce as she says - "the sound as an unknown quality in the
painting of graphical elements and, therefore, I increase the possibilities of this
latter quantitatively". With respect to the historical recordings, we have compiled
those by the creator of the term zaum, Alexei Krucenich, who recorded several
poems with his own voice in 1949.
Another important aspect of the Russian futurism from the sound language
movement was the practical application in music of the importance of new sounds
from the industrial revolution and machinery. Unlike the futurist theories of the
Italians, who already noted this in their manifestos, it was the Soviet cubo-futurists
who emphasized their practical materialization, within the context of the new
Soviet society. Examples like Zavod ("Steel Foundry", 1928) by Alexander
Mossolov that included a great steel plate struck like one more instrument of the
orchestra or Dnieprostot ("Dnieper Water Power Station", 1920's) by Julius
Meytuss, where through percussion sounds he outlines the process of
construction of the famous Soviet dam. But it will be with the work "Sinfoniya
Gudkov " ("Symphony of the sirens", 1919-23) by Arseni Avraamov, where the use
of the sounds of sirens from factories, trains, boats, and the noise of the motors of
motor transports and airplanes, were taken to their logical conclusion, …, all this
together with the songs of the working masses and bands. This macroconcert
used the sonority of all the space of the cities where it was presented: Nizhy