‘NON-PHOTOGRAPHIC’: SERGIY BRATKOV AND BORIS MIKHAILOV

Abstract

The article analyzes the play prerequisites for the creation, methods of implementation and conditions of perception of B. Mіkhaіlov’s and S. Bratkov’s works — multimedia installations ‘Sacrifice to the God of War’ and ‘Box for Three Letters’, presented in the exhibition project ‘Alchemical Surrender’ of the Soros Center for Contemporary Art in Sevastopol in 1994. As a result of the research, it was found that S. Bratkov and B. Mikhaіlov had chosen ‘non-photographic’ as an artistic language for the project ‘Alchemical surrender’ — the language of carnival forms and carnival symbols. The multimedia installation ‘Sacrifice to the God of War’ combines the following forms of folk ridiculous carnival culture: theatrical and spectacular forms — happening, recorded on video, and three art objects — assemblages created on the basis of photographic images. The multimedia installation ‘A Box for Three Letters’ combines different forms of folk ridiculous carnival culture: theatrical and spectacular forms — happening recorded on video, art objects (box, board, etc.); verbal-laughter work — a parodic statement depicted on the board, as well as one of the forms of familiar-square speech. In both installations, the mythology of matriarchy gets its generalization and completion in the ambivalent image of the Big Mother — Mother Earth. The author managed to show the applicability of the M. Bakhtin’s concept of ‘culture of popular laughter’, as well as the O. Losev’s hermeneutics of the ancient myth, etc. as a critical discourses for the analysis of works and projects of contemporary art, for example, as the project Kiev SCCA ‘Alchemical surrender’ (1994).