Andrey Smirnov :: lectures

Thinking about the history in common and evolution of music and technology particularly, we often see it as a natural progress, both, unwavering and endless. However trying to “zoom” and analyze the historical process in details, we often find the sequences of closely related concepts and inventions, which appear as a sort of genetic progression, in fact, having no causal relationship, being developed by completely isolated from each other individuals, often almost forgotten now. The linear view on the history can't explain these facts as well as their relations with the known history and most recent cultural trends and ideas.
In this lecture series, partialy based on my own historical archives, I make overview of almost forgotten history of Russian inventions and early creative concepts, proto-ideas and proto-instruments similar to the most recent cultural and technological innovations, historical treasures, foreseeing and prescience, which has outstrip their time.

> Russian Futurism, Nikolai Kulbin and the concept of Free Music (1907-1916);
> Leon Theremin: Music and Gesture. Overview of main inventions (1919-1960-s);
> Body movement and gestural control over sound;
> Nikolai Bernshtein and concept of Alive Motion (1930-1940-s);
> Alexei Gastev, his concepts, poems and projects (1920-s);
> Arseny Avraamov and the Symphony of Factory Sirens (1920-s);
> Arseny Avraamov and Ultrachromatic Music (1916+);
> Avraamov, Scholpo, Tsihanovsky and invention of Painted Sound techniques (1929);
> Paper Sound: Nikolay Voinov and his Nivotone instrument (1931);
> Evgeny Scholpo and his Variophone instrument (1930);
> Arseny Avraamov and his Welttonsystem (1930);
> Boris Yankovsky and his Vibroexponator instrument (1932);
> Boris Yankovsky’s “syntones” and spectral mutations in early 30-s (1932-1939);
> Evgeny Murzin and ANS synthesizer - proto-Metasynth in 30-50-s (1936-1958);
> Leon Theremin’s eavesdropping systems and the art of vibrations (since 1945).
> Historical parallels (1907-2007).

=10 hours=