location: CC Pushkinskaya 10, St. Petersburg
material / technical equipment: video monitor, VHS tape recorder, VHS camera, Bible, headphones, microphone
duration: 6:00 hours
A TV-moderator reads aloud “Six Days of Creation” – the first verses of the Old Testament book of “Genesis.” He reproduces this text at the hearing with the help of headphones, repeating the original text read by the previous moderator from the TV screen standing behind him. This previous moderator in the back monitor is retransmitting just as exactly from the hearing the text read by a moderator from the more distant television screen standing behind this moderator …. And so on infinitely. With each new reproduction of the biblical text each of the moderators makes unintentional errors in speech, mixes up the clauses, pauses incorrectly, makes false stresses and different intonations. Each new recording brings to each subsequent moderator the errors of each previous moderators. Errors are fixated, multiplied, and they reproduce themselves. After a certain number of retransmissions, the process becomes unmanageable. Errors grow like a snowball. The biblical text is transformed to the extent beyond recognition, becoming a set of inarticulate sounds, meaningless word combinations.
performance, movie: Andrey Ustinov
camera: Yuri Popov
production: ArtMediaForum, “Luga-film” Studio