Autobiography

After graduating from KHADI (Kharkiv Automobile and Highway Institute), my parents were assigned to work in the town of Novyi Buh, where I was born. Since my father built roads, we moved from city to city. In 1971, we moved to Dnipropetrovsk (Dnipro), where we settled for a long time until I left in 1987 to study at NAOMA (National Academy of Visual Arts and Architecture) in Kyiv.

My mother is a born designer; she loves beautiful things and has always had a penchant for novelty and decorating everyday life. My father was not overly strict, but he treated his work with excessive responsibility, saying that roads are the "blue arteries of life"—he even wrote poetry about it.

I would divide the Dnipropetrovsk period into two parts: the "courtyard" life and my studies at the Dnieper State Art College (named after Y.V. Vuchetich).

I remember when we moved to Kalinova Street in Dnipropetrovsk. Our new nine-story building stood amidst foundation pits and kuchugury (sand dunes); a new district was being built on the outskirts of the left bank. It was easy to hide from my parents in these dunes. There was complete freedom there, which I always liked, although sometimes I had to pay for it with injuries, shoes full of sand, and scoldings from my parents. In these pits, one could find rusted Soviet and German helmets, machine guns, cartridges, and shells from World War II. Since childhood, I loved to draw, copying from cartoons, gum wrappers, etc.

In the third grade, my mother took me to art school. My first teacher was Yuri Mikhailovich Klochko, though not for long. At first, I drew still lifes of plaster forms, but when they set up a "dead stuffed animal"—a crow—I felt repulsed, ran away, and did not return until I entered college.

I ran away to where the excavation pits were—it was more interesting there: bonfires, homemade guns, smoking found cigarette butts, war games, and especially bird catching. Catching birds was a passion of mine, far more than the pragmatic act of fishing. Once I caught a red-footed falcon, but keeping it on a balcony in a small cage was impossible; it screamed like a wild cat, so I released it. In general, I loved bringing home any living creature. I had two loggias where, in the summer, I kept lizards, grass snakes, a crow, and a rooster that crowed in the mornings and woke up all the neighbors.

At that time, I also loved collecting badges, stamps, and especially gum wrappers. This was probably my first experience of international perception; I was particularly attracted to the designs of gum packaging and inserts. I remember that due to the lack of foreign gum—which we shared, even passing it from mouth to mouth—we chewed construction tar found at building sites.

I was also into sports: volleyball, karate, and weightlifting. I should note that due to its military industry, Dnipropetrovsk was a closed city until 1985, so it had a peculiar fashion culture. At that time, it was cool to wear Japanese nylon jackets, fluffy mohair scarves, smoke through a long cigarette holder, and most importantly—wear speckled "beanie" caps (pidarki), also known as "toadstools" (mukhomory)—a purely Dnipropetrovsk attribute. And if you had a leather trench coat, you were a "sharp lad."

One day, in the eighth grade, I found an anti-aircraft shell in a pit. It exploded unfortunately in my left hand; I ended up in intensive care, and my left hand had to be amputated. I remember that while in the hospital, Christ came to me in a dream and whispered something in my ear; he looked just like in Kramskoy's painting Christ in the Desert.

It is unpleasant to recall parts of this childhood, and I do not wish to dwell on it. I have briefly outlined the key moments, omitting the fact that I did not become a drug addict like my courtyard friends, who are no longer alive—God had mercy on me.

From then on, a completely different period began—a period of awareness, as my choice of profession was physically limited. Previously, I thought about going to a technical school after eighth grade, but now I had to finish ten grades to enter an institute, though I didn't know which one yet. After the tenth grade, my father got me a job at the VRZ (Railcar Repair Plant) in the Quality Control Bureau. The factory had fifteen workshops, and my task was to walk around them every day and take readings for reports.

I am a curious person by nature. I was interested in how things worked: when a device was bought, like a reel-to-reel tape recorder, I would secretly disassemble it to see what was inside. And here was a whole railcar repair plant! It was fascinating and felt very grown-up. Three thirty-year-old women worked in my bureau (they looked like fifty-year-olds do today), and sometimes they teased me. For example, one said: "Let's go to the disco tonight, I'll wear jeans." I felt awkward hearing that from an "auntie."

One day, the boss sent me to the artists' workshop, as they were delaying some graphic chart. The artists immediately sent me to buy wine; we drank together, and I really liked the workshop atmosphere. From that day on, I started visiting them in my free time and even helped paint posters. It was here that I learned about the existence of an art college in our city—the choice was made. I had only a month to prepare for the entrance exams, so I returned to the studio to my first teacher, Yuri Mikhailovich, years later.

I took drawing and painting very seriously. Since many had finished art school before college, I had to master the technique quickly. I remember that copying from samples helped a lot; you quickly understand what color to mix and how the stroke lies in the drawing. The basics of composition were given to me by Viktor Ivanovich Matyash—my favorite teacher, who was like a father to me. I transferred to the group he supervised. We found such a common language that we had heart-to-heart talks in his studio. He was the key figure in establishing me on the path of the art world. Viktor Ivanovich taught me to think, explaining things very good-naturedly and clearly, especially with his trademark smile.

In 1983, I entered the Dnipropetrovsk Art College, the design department, on my first attempt. It was a different world, and this world became mine for life. In the first year, my "courtyard" habits slowly faded (though sometimes I could still punch someone in the jaw if I didn't like something). For example, when drawing a still life, a fellow student decided to rearrange the objects after I had already sketched everything. I told him, "Put it back," and he paid zero attention. So I punched him so hard his legs stuck up behind the chairs.

I remember Viktor Ivanovich even gave me a separate room to paint my diploma picture—this was incredibly appreciative; no one else was given such an indulgence. I haven't met such teachers since, even in the Academy. We still communicate, and I always wonder where he gets so much positivity; it is not for nothing that the girls call him "the sunshine man." Viktor Ivanovich told me I had to go further—to enter the Institute. When such an authority gives advice, it adds confidence and strength. At that time, the pinnacle was to enter the KGHI (Kyiv State Art Institute). The competition for the painting department was seven people for one spot, considering that half of the applicants were "well-connected." In our college, there was a stand on the first floor with photos of those who had entered this institute; we looked at them as if they were the lucky ones.

Many did not get in on the first try and worked somewhere for a whole year to try again. I didn't want to lose time, so I decided to make a "Knight's Move": enter the restoration department and then transfer to painting. The admission was an incredible celebration, like a bright flash. Kyiv was a surprisingly big, beautiful, and poetic city for me, one I fell in love with immediately. So much freshness, novelty, seriousness, responsibility, and most importantly—independence. The past was behind me. This was the biggest milestone in my life because a completely different stage began with Kyiv.

But another key figure appeared back in college. One morning, walking to class, I heard a voice behind me: "Why aren't you saying hello?" I turned around to see a fourth-year student, arms paint-stained up to the elbows, with a crazy smile—it was Oleg Golosiy. That’s how we met. I met Oleg again at the end of my first year at the Academy. In 1988, at a bus stop, I heard a familiar voice behind me: "Why aren't you saying hello?" I turned around and saw a figure in a black, worn leather trench coat with a Belomorkanal cigarette in his mouth. It was Oleg Golosiy. He invited me for coffee at "Lvivska Brama"; he had just returned from the army (back then, students were drafted after the first year). As we drank coffee, he seemed strange to me; people from Dnipro didn't behave like that. He asked weird questions, like, "You see the red light on the traffic signal? Who said it's red and not green?" or "What artists do you like?" I answered, "Realists." He looked at me thoughtfully and said: "That means it will be easy for you in the institute."

Then we went to the dormitory on Lukyanivska Street 69/71. He said, "Let's go to the ninth floor, I'll introduce you to Vasya Tsagolov." I asked, "Who is that?" He replied, "He is my teacher." Then he looked at the ceiling and said thoughtfully, "Well... sort of a teacher..." I went to my room, and Oleg immediately came in and gave me a book about Van Gogh by E. Murina: "Read this. He's a f***ing great artist." Then he suggested we get drunk in the evening. I refused, as he seemed intrusive. Oleg left, and I flipped through the Van Gogh pictures and put the book on the shelf because I had to prepare for the institute the next day. It was very strict there; one could easily be expelled or lose their scholarship for poor performance.

The first year was difficult for me. More attention was paid to the history of the CPSU (Communist Party) than to painting and drawing. I remember understanding nothing, but I had to attend, despite Perestroika, which reached Kyiv slowly. I moved three times during the first year to get into the institute dormitory. But I got lucky: Oleg Yasenev, who had studied at my college, was the dorm commandant. As a fellow countryman, he allocated me a three-person room on the seventh floor all to myself.

Naturally, everything started spinning from there. First, Edik Potapenkov came and asked to live with me. Then, over time, more guys from Dnipro arrived and settled on the seventh floor. Thus, a "Dnipropetrovsk Commune" from the college was formed: Sergey Kornievsky, Anatoly Varvarov, Vladimir Zaichenko, Ruslan Kutnyak, Vladimir Padun. Subsequently, this commune flowed onto Olegivska Street.

In the second year, I transferred to the painting faculty, and Oleg Golosiy rented the hall opposite my room as a studio. I would periodically drop by for coffee.

Oleg was in his "black and white" period then; he used paints from a hardware store, which caused the paint to crack and crumble from the canvas by morning. I asked Oleg: "Why don't you paint with color?" Instead of explaining, he put on a vinyl record of "Lambada," then played Bach, and said: "Do you hear the difference?" Oleg loved to explain through images. If you asked what art is, he would take a kettle and pour water into a cup. When it overflowed and spilled onto the table, he would say: "That is what art is."

Or he would say, "Read these books," and give a list that one had to run around libraries to find. It was existential literature: Kafka, Camus, Borges, Cortázar, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer. He also advised watching neoclassical films, which were starting to be shown in cinemas. At first, I thought he was fooling around, but he had truly entered the image of a believer in art so deeply that his obsession alarmed me.

One day, at seven in the morning, Oleg knocked on the door. I opened it to see him pulling two bundles of twenty-five ruble notes out of his pocket. It was five thousand—a large sum at the time, given his eternal poverty. With that same crazy smile on his face, he said: "Money is good; you can throw it left and right."

He had sold works at the Mars Gallery in Moscow. From then on, he traveled to Moscow more often and left me the studio, and I became infected with experimenting. There were various books and artist catalogs in Oleg's studio. I liked the manner of Giorgio Morandi. Many in the dormitory were inspired by this artist. Also at that time, I was given a large book about Easter Island, and I became inspired by the elongated forms of the idols.

1989 was a year of contrasts for me. In the spring, I married Olya, with whom I still live, and four days later, my father died absurdly. He was fifty-one. God sent me a woman who understood me in everything and gave me freedom. Generally, I think an artist depends largely on a woman. For example, if a woman demands a fur coat, a car, a house, etc., at the beginning of a creative path, how can one not become a mere craftsman? So Olya and I began living together, and in 1992 our daughter was born, whom I also decided to name Olechka.

Edik Potapenkov went to rent a small basement on the legendary Olegivska Street 37, where all of us from Dnipro were eventually drawn to rent studios. There was an atmosphere of freedom and independence.

If in the first year you could be expelled from the institute for drinking with someone in your room, by the second year, this taboo was lifted. Discos and noisy parties until morning began; attending the institute was no longer mandatory, the main thing was to present the works, which were painted and drawn from photographs three days before the review. I chose the studio of Viktor Vasilyevich Shatalin, who was "kinder" regarding attendance discipline, allowing more attention to be paid to creativity. Shatalin was already elderly and didn't come to the institute every day. Sometimes he would come, find a lock on the studio door, curse into the air—something like "Japanese god!" or "What a mess!"—and leave without offense.

Yes, the country was in a real mess: empty shelves, the initial stage of wild capitalism, and democracy without a legal framework. But it was precisely in this state of chaos and youth that creativity was created—sometimes unconscious, but very alive. It was enough to see a catalog or hear some cool music, and a night of painting experiments was guaranteed.

At a time when there were no cell phones or internet, the main exchange of events or rumors was the "Sarafan Radio" (the grapevine). This was special information within narrow artistic circles. For instance, someone passed a rumor that painting for the "Salon" was bad—meaning you weren't a "legitimate artist"; it was better to work as a janitor than to produce hackwork.

It is clear now that the origin of the Parisian Salon des Refusés dates back to the second half of the 19th century and did not strive for commercial success or public taste, but few of us knew about that then. The reality was that almost everyone sinned by doing hackwork quietly, ensuring the invisible "grapevine" didn't notice, as it had no explanation for why doing it one way was cool and another way was not. Or, you won't find the word "fuza" in textbooks, but the grapevine said it was the leftover paint in a jar with turpentine where unwashed brushes were kept—a gray sludge with some tint. Through rumors, we also learned about exhibitions, traveled to Moscow where books, catalogs, and magazines on the latest art appeared. It was interesting to figure out what postmodernism, deconstruction, simulacra, citation, irony, etc., were.

In the early 90s, some people moved to live on Olegivska Street, while others just rented studios; thus, the movement began. For a meager fee, one could rent several rooms and not worry about utilities—everything was free because no one controlled it. The wooden houses, about a hundred years old, were in emergency condition, so there were fires and street inconveniences with rats, cats, dogs, and local boys with whom we sometimes had conflicts. This didn't scare us because we were young and romantic, and it was all in the city center. The artists included: Anatoly Varvarov, Volodya Zaichenko, Igor Konovalov, Konstantin Militinsky, Vladimir Padun, Lyudmila Rozdobudko-Padun, Eduard Potapenkov, Ruslan Kutnyak, Vladimir Yershikhin, Konstantin Maslov, Vyacheslav Mashnitsky, Mustafa Khalil. Future art critics: Olga Konovalova, Oksana Militinskaya, Oksana Barshinova, Igor Khoborov, Konstantin Doroshenko. There were musicians and the future director-cameraman Valentin Vasyanovich.

Around the same time, the "Paris Commune" appeared, and we liked what they were doing. I remember Oleg Golosiy came by and suggested we join them, but we had already settled in. Besides, I was living with my family in the dormitory then, and I could walk to the studio in five minutes.

At that time, we didn't even know what a squat, an institution, or a curator was. We were just interested in gathering together to discuss and work; only exhibiting was problematic. One day in January 1993, Oleg Golosiy visited me at the dorm, and we went to my studio on Olegivska Street and sat in the basement until morning. Oleg was just as taciturn and thoughtful. To the question "How is art in the West?" he answered with a smile: "Art there is artificial." Three days later, we learned that Oleg had died under mysterious circumstances.

In that same year, 1993, I graduated from the institute. I went through all the stages of "traditional upbringing": I was deprived of my scholarship for wrecking the summer practice and for "formalism," as the art council put it, and one teacher said I was an "enemy of Ukrainian art." Some were given "Fs" on their diplomas, but in the end, based on overall grades, I defended my degree. Hurrah! At the end of the defense, Vasily Ivanovich Gurin approached me and offered to let me join the Union of Artists without any issues. I refused. Even now, I do not want to be a member of anything.

In the same year, 1993, we (A. Varvarov, I. Konovalov, K. Militinsky, V. Padun, E. Potapenkov) held a joint exhibition. At the bottom of Andriyivskyy Descent was a small mansion housing the "Ancient Kyiv State Historical Reserve." We proposed an exhibition, and the directorate agreed. We decided to hold it in December and name it simply, without pathos—"December"—emphasizing our neutral-Buddhist stance toward various art trends. December is the last month of the year, when an atmosphere of emptiness and a light farewell to something obsolete is felt. And so we painted pictures for the exhibition—relaxedly, in no hurry, not wishing to prove anything to anyone.

After the "December" exhibition, we split into groups: "Kholodny VEL," and separately—myself with Tolik Varvarov. It was more interesting that way, more competitive perhaps. By that time, Soros grants were already available in Kyiv, of which we had no clue; money made fame for artists, while we grew in our own garden, stewing in our own juices.

The state of freedom did not come from being able to do whatever you wanted, but from not doing what you didn't want to do. Over time, I realized one important thing: a person does not change; they "manifest" based on place and the confluence of circumstances in time. Similarly, art "manifests" rather than "develops." Technology, comfort zones, means of communication, and production develop. Art in the social sphere is not a segment of development, but rather a "manifestation" of a variety of ideas and forms in space and time. Therefore, we became interested in doing projects in other forms and outside institutional locations, which were only just emerging then.

All young artists want support. I remember approaching Sasha Solovyov and inviting him to our projects, but there was no reaction, although there were few exhibitions of "the latest art" in Kyiv at the time. The Kyiv mentality has always been a mystery to me; even now, a "Bulgakov-esque" quality is present. Once, through the "grapevine," we heard about a "magical" meeting at the Union of Artists. We went and realized the essence of the meeting was that Sasha Roitburd was trying to gain Sasha Solovyov's trust and proposed making him "chief of staff"; Solovyov, apparently, did not want such responsibility and demurred. Then the door opened, and Arsen Savadov appeared. Roitburd said, "Oh, come in, Arsen!" Savadov looked into the hall and closed the door behind him. Roitburd couldn't hold back and shouted: "Ah, f*** you!" Nothing was agreed upon at that meeting.

I realized then that one must do everything oneself, and everyone has their own crowd. Our first exhibition with Anatoly began with a kitchen conversation between Natasha Varvarova and a friend. They were looking at a book about the Pushkin Museum and accidentally turned an illustration of a Dutch still life upside down. Since they were dancers, they saw a dancing bird, a hare, and something else in the reproduction. Natasha told Tolik, and he told me. At that time, we were listening to the folk group Dead Can Dance, and due to the lack of visual information, music acted as a peculiar source of inspiration. Thus arose the idea of inverting the genre—from Still Life (Mertvaya natura - dead nature) to Nature Dance.

We turned the still life upside down and inverted it into negative color, as if revealing the reverse side of dead nature. The metaphysical space of the inverted paintings was to merge with the real space where the ballerina (Natasha Varvarova) rehearsed.

The state of society in 1994 reminded us of a dead world: empty shelves, lack of earnings, and an unknown future. We, the young, wanted liveliness at least around ourselves—and we acted. The project "Rehearsal" was an experimental trial of embedding into a foreign production location. For the exposition, we chose the rehearsal hall of the Karpenko-Kary Theatre Institute. I remember the audience's reaction: everyone was in some shock, as no one could say for sure if it was a rehearsal or an exhibition-action. The project lasted only a few hours. Since visitors started smoking and drinking alcohol right in the hall, we were asked to leave the premises.

At the "Rehearsal" exhibition, we met the editors of Terra Incognita magazine: artist Gleb Vysheslavsky, critic Katya Stukalova, and collector-patron Vladimir Kashirsky. Thus began our friendly relations, and they started publishing us in the only contemporary art magazine at the time; it was like rosin for a violin.

Subsequent exhibitions were just as situational and tentative. We were intrigued by the ethical experiment of interacting with new acquaintances in new spaces. Simultaneously, it was not only self-expression but a message of other forms of integrating the newest art. We continued the strategy of "cultural intervention" of postmodern art and held two more exhibition-actions in 1995: "Cultural Consensus" and "Return of the Prodigal Son."

The story of the video film "Goldfish" began banally with the appearance of a novelty at Olegivka: a video camera. No one knew then that after editing the film, there would be the opening of the "Fiction Gallery Expedition" (FGE), where this video would be shown for the first time. In the meantime, Vova Zaichenko borrowed it for a week and filmed everything in sight, amazed by the speed of playback on a regular TV.

The selection of subjects naturally narrowed, stopping at the death mask of A.S. Pushkin hanging on my studio wall. I had the idea to make a "dactyloscopy" of my own face. This process was filmed to the music of The Residents (Eskimo). Viewing it on the monitor, we saw a sacred act in the process between life and death, the living body and the frozen gypsum identity of the cast. The cast mask looked like a vessel into which water could be poured, but at a certain camera angle, a reverse illusion of convexity appeared. This sparked the idea for Goldfish: a living organism can live in a vessel if there is a medium for existence. Similarly, art can exist as long as the plaster cast has not hardened. Art is always in the process itself, like visiting magic that can never be definitively captured. Fixation is merely a frozen artificial cast, a testimony to the creation process in time, which can be destroyed or preserved for a while.

I want to note that in a state where the formation of contemporary art institutions and integration into the global context was being planned for the first time, there simply was no budget or funds. Therefore, the first squats, private galleries, magazines, ad-hoc exhibitions, and meetings began to appear on a volunteer basis. In our case, during the default, our resources were only what we carried with us and what lay at hand. The solution was the formation of a fictional, conceptual shell named "Fiction Gallery Expedition." Naturally, within the conceptual dimension of freedom, this could designate not only our squat but the globe and even the cosmos—we liked that.

Ideas come through trial, error, experience, and, of course, "magic chance"—when you don't expect it, the "sudden" happens. Walking once again from the art institute dorm to the studio on Olegivska, we noticed a naval longboat near the intersection of Lukyanivska and Olegivska streets. By that time, a point of assemblage was maturing, lacking only one puzzle piece: the place where the "Departure" would occur.

And so, on Mount Shchekavytsia (one theory links the name "Shchek" to the Old Slavic word for nightingale), in benevolent May weather transitioning into summer, we all gathered to embark on a journey into the unknown. Each participant seated their body duplicate (avatar) in the boat where they wanted to sit themselves. A TV with a VCR was placed in the center, powered by a nearby electric pole.

The video shown was a documentary chronicle of the "avatars'" birth. This "birth" was the leitmotif of the event. The "birth" of an anthropological gallery-as-artwork, distinct from the artwork-as-artifact, because instead of a fixed form, it possessed duration in time and space, akin to human life. Therefore, the "departure" of the boat should be viewed not as a separate form (or action), but as the beginning of the FGE's path toward its own self-actualization.

The default began in the country, and living in Kyiv became financially impossible. I returned to Dnipro with my family, mastered graphic programs there, and got a job as a designer. Only in 2000, initially without my family, did I move back to Kyiv.

I returned to my basement on Olegivska Street, where only a third of the canvases remained; the rest had been looted because it was a thoroughfare. Vova Zaichenko (Zayats) lived on the first floor. We lived almost together—just through a door—and invented various things, mostly into thin air, as there was no money to materialize them.

One evening, we recalled our expedition (FGE) from the last century/millennium and thought: why not make "The Stop" (Ostanovka)—symbolically and materially, right in the courtyard, a real one made of brick with a bench. Then we realized that building "The Stop" just for ourselves in the yard would be a domestic structure. So we decided to move it near the studios on Mount Shchekavytsia, in an open space "for everyone."

The wall itself was built of two-colored bricks so that the inscription FGE was visible in large red letters. Opposite "The Stop" were two cemeteries: Old Believer and Muslim, so one could contemplate the eternal at our stop. But we didn't get to think about the eternal for long; the militia arrived and took us to the station. They drew up a protocol calling our work a "Bench with a retaining wall." To settle the conflict with the authorities, we had enough money to buy vodka, pickles, and green peas, and these gifts ensured we were left in peace. But complete peace came four days later when "The Stop" was smashed to smithereens, brick by brick.

Discarding personal anecdotes, "The Stop" stood on the cusp of the Millennium as a point of "surfacing"—an emergence of action free from liability, perhaps parallel to institutional thinking. It was the first landing after a long voyage. "The Stop" had no purpose other than resuming the FGE route.

In 2000, Vova Zaichenko and I decided to make something more durable and vandal-resistant. We built a mirror cube on Zamkova Hill. This was the physical "Station – 1"; there wasn't even a path to it. In the virtual space, I created the website "Station – 2" to archive photo/video documentation. Naturally, in the uncontrolled zone, the mirror reflection of the cube began to irritate visitors, and in less than a week, the cultural balance defined itself. The cube, in a mutilated state and strewn with mirror shards, withstood the first battle with the crowd.

This kind of experimental activity in a duet with Vladimir Zaichenko provided food for thought and for constructing FGE's own self-sufficient concept. For the sake of the purity of art, unlike legal galleries with physical addresses, the need for market strategy and the intervention of intermediaries working within institutions disappeared. For us, intersecting creative impulses were important, not the competition of like-minded people aiming for glossy magazine pages. Conclusions and actions for further communication with the urban environment followed.

Vova Zaichenko and I also did the "Birds" action, and after that, I started building alone, hiring workers. Truth be told, it was always a bit scary engaging in partisan antics; these gifts to the city were unauthorized construction.

To be honest, I don't fully understand my own creative potentials, but gaining fresh experience each time was fascinating. I expended considerable personal resources on calculation: concept-form, parameters, dates, and—very importantly—location. Naturally, materials and hired labor were at my own expense.

Based on past practice, I began to notice two types of people among visitors to my objects: us/them, minority/majority, unusual/simple, educated/zeros, etc. My desire was to unite them through a third party—the landscape and the sky—and this happened.

When a person is institutionally educated in art, looking at a work triggers a search for resemblance to what is already in their memory; such people usually frequent exhibition halls, listen to lectures, read books, etc. For this environment, I needed to name what I had been doing for many years, besides it being the self-organization "Fiction Gallery Expedition." A wandering definition amidst evolutionarily blurred boundaries of Western models—"Land Art," "Public Art," "Environment"—all similar, but not quite right due to the specificity of the exhibition site. So I went further: if the objects were built exclusively on hills, and the panorama plays a mutually important role, why not call it HILL-ART? Especially since this highlights the ancient city of Kyiv.

On the other hand, for the majority of those "zero" viewers visiting these objects, the author's meaning is absolutely irrelevant; they birth their own interpretations and names. For example, "Trinity" became a "Three-wheeled self-propelled vehicle." And since humans are often endowed with fantasy and faith in something miraculous, a kind of "fixation" occurs—either on ready-made practices like religions or on their own convictions. Surprisingly, some tried for several years to unravel a system of "quests," linking it to my previous objects. They crawled all over nearby hills, communicating on forums, unaware of the relation to contemporary art, arriving at scientific conclusions, and thus forming their own value system from scratch. But when they learned it was the work of artists, they were often disappointed.

So, in 2006, I finished the ten-year "Fiction Gallery Expedition" project and returned to painting. One day online, I met a young art critic, Dana Pinchevskaya, and invited her to the studio. She looked at my old works and said they were of museum quality. Then Dana brought gallerist Andrei Trilissky, and we decided to hold my first solo exhibition, "Ctrl — Z", at RA Gallery. It was a huge surprise when, after the exhibition, I received 8,000 bucks for two sold works; this was before the 2008 crisis. Later, I called all my friends from the squat, and we did several group projects at RA Gallery.

Then came the first large-scale exhibition "Squat on Olegivska" at M-17. The format accent was not a museum retrospective, but rather popular-commercial, though no one sold anything. We hope that someday a cultural cross-section of the 90s squats—not just in Kyiv, but all of Ukraine—will be conducted. It would be very interesting because it is a huge layer of history that preceded the formation of contemporary art institutions.

When we published the book Squat on Olegivska, the Association of Art Galleries of Ukraine and the "Soviart" Center for Contemporary Art became interested. Viktor Khamatov conducted a series of our exhibitions across Ukrainian cities, culminating in a planned large retrospective "Squat on Olegivska" at the National Art Museum. When the time came, the museum began renovations, and we were postponed indefinitely.

Currently, I am engaged in observing and manifesting society. I invented a marker-image of informational, atom-like particles in the form of "bunnies" (zaychiki)—rapid in reproduction and swift in their spread. Their moving images have filled the entire space of modern human life. These particles transmit an infinite digital data stream, unique in its speed, which has conquered the whole world. Never before has humanity possessed such instant information transmission.

Bunny-Infatons (information particles) essentially transform human consciousness today. Inorganic, inanimate, intangible, they form the Infosphere and influence our values, foundations, behavior, and morality; in other words, they control the brain.

The term I introduced, "Infodelica" (infa – information, and from the Ancient Greek delos – clear/manifest), emerged after realizing the reality we inhabit.

Recalling the early 90s, when computers and cell phones were just appearing, contemporary culture was permeated with various manifestations of psychedelia. I use the term "psychedelia" deliberately as a general state of transition from the Soviet to the market capitalist system, followed by an instant quantum leap into the era of high technology. Characteristically, since the beginning of the millennium, we have imperceptibly transitioned from "psychedelic" culture to "infodelic."

Much has been written and played out about psychedelia in various art forms, music, literature, cinema, etc. If previously, for example, in the 80s, you got a Pink Floyd vinyl or a Castaneda book, you could ensure an ecstatic state for at least a month or a year. This experience of a deficit form generated an idea of a Western or otherworldly paradise. In our time, any information is available instantly. The absence of deficit and time, combined with the increasing flow of information, generates an infodelic state. A state where you must be amazed again and again in a world of special effects. A state of reading endlessly peeling images. Thus, the world of "infodelica" displaces, first and foremost, subjective sublime experiences that are incommensurate with high technology, or renders them superficial in numerous TV series.

The shift from a psychedelic paradise to an infodelic one leaves a nostalgia for the experience of the uplifting human spirit—that past without mobile phones and computers, which is often retransmitted in glamorous shells. All notions of something "greater" are already devalued by high-speed modeling and the media reproduction of electronic particles. Infodelica has zeroed out all meanings of the "great and new" as previous generations knew it, substituting natural sources with the pulsing of microchips into a unified nature of digital miracles. The mechanism lies in the continuous retention of the subject through the flickering of short perceptions, leaving no gap for absorbing meaning or emotional tuning. The moment of truth, according to Heidegger, conceals itself even more by showing itself faster and more often, to the point where the question itself is hardly asked. An uninterrupted impulse of artificial truth is created, where the sponsoring lubricant is advertising. We eat info more often than its content. Temptation, promises, and special effects—this is the infodelic paradise of consumer thinking. Moreover, we are in a situation where the user often does not understand what constitutes their happiness.

"Thus, we speak of a dominant state of informational expansion of consciousness, which has its pros and cons. Where physical defects, psychological problems, or joyful news can be discussed on social networks. Distancing from natural communications may lead to a rethinking of new spiritual values and the creation of a new image of one's land."

Igor Konovalov