"The Birds" / share

Following the "surfacing" of the open-air "Stop"—which existed on the hill for mere four days—Vova Zaichenko and I contemplated how to demarcate the "ceiling" of our fictitious gallery space (FGE) against the sky. Once again, I drew upon a childhood experience: catching wild birds with the neighborhood boys. I proposed to Vova that we catch birds right behind our studio on Olegivska Street, where the hill was teeming with various avian life. Through discussion and debate, we decided to band the caught birds with gold rings. Each ring would be embossed with a single letter—F, G, or E—so that, once airborne, they would trace the invisible triangle of the fictitious gallery’s boundaries in the sky.

While I prepared the netting for the trap, and Vova commissioned a jeweler to craft the gold rings, we received visitors at the studio: Vika Melnikova and her husband Valentin Melnichenko from the "Novy Channel" TV station. Over tea and friendly conversation, we described our "Birds" action. They were captivated by the concept. Vika was developing an auteur program titled Special Reporter, focusing on content about "eccentric people," and they proposed documenting our action for the pilot episode. Naturally, we agreed with enthusiasm. I should note that in those days, television crews attended exhibitions and cultural events far more frequently—and with significantly greater interest—than they do today.

And so, on the appointed day, we succeeded in catching the birds, which were immediately ringed: "F" was placed on a goldfinch, "G" on a linnet, and "E" on a bullfinch. Thus emerged the term "betrothal to the sky." On one hand, the betrothed birds are bound to the signs of the FGE acronym; on the other, they are carriers and intermediaries—living boundaries of an invisible structure, adapted to nature.

We cannot track their trajectories, the transformation of their unity, or the triangulation of the FGE borders. Our objective was to conceive, to imagine, to experience an incorporeal multiplicity—endlessly shifting triangles and the openness of a relational process.

Moving, intertwining, carrying the point-boundaries of the FGE, these limits cannot be traced either physically or semiotically. Conceptually, one can imagine that these living, marked objects create a kind of living performance—an elusive, formless whole. Yet in reality, we know that this migratory form of the FGE can exist for an indeterminate duration—the lifespan of the birds (10–12 years). This serves as yet another instance of the absence of institutionality, residing in its existing invisibility and autonomy within the natural world, where criticism, ideation, and calculation are absent. Thus, the FGE continues its existence—an expedition into an unknown direction.

To be continued ... >>>

Konovalov I