114. THREE MEGAPHONES FOR KAPITON

(The action was carried out in the context of the group Kapiton.)

On the banks of the Yauza River (not far from the location of the object “Nirvana” from the action Intersection-2) portraits of Napoleon (in a round, glazed frame, 7 cm in diameter), Murat, Ney, and Grouchy (in rectangular frames of a smaller size) were hung on the branches of a tree.

Across from them, in a tree on the Yauza’s southern bank, V. Zakharov and Yu. Leiderman hung a green velvet-covered box. Attached to the box was a disk containing the videotape of the KD action Russian World in a plastic case whose cover had a color photograph of the scene from Russian World where the audience stood in a snow-covered field, surrounding the towering Big White Rabbit from that action.

Before heading to the Yauza’s southern bank, Zakharov and Leiderman were given megaphones that had black-and-white photographic portraits of the popular bards Fedosova (1831–1899) and Krivopolenova (1843–1924) pasted on them. The third megaphone (with Monastyrsky) had a color portrait of Davout.

First, A. Monastyrsky used the megaphone with Davout to read text #324 from the book Traditional Folklore of the Novgorod Region (St. Petersburg: Aleteiia, 2001). Next, Zakharov was invited to use his megaphone to read text #364 from the same book, and Leiderman – text #381.

Then, again using the megaphone, Monastyrsky recounted the episode in which Napoleon, riding up to the Neman River, fell from his horse because the horse was spooked by a rabbit that had jumped out onto its path.

This was followed by a discussion (through the three megaphones) regarding a question posed by AM about the “empty action” in the given action (whether or not it is necessary to leave the objects from the action after its conclusion for anonymous viewers). The discussion resulted in the decision that on the northern bank of the Yauza would be left just the portrait of Grouchy, while on the southern, the box with Russian World (after placing the case with the dvd and the photograph inside the box) would be hung higher on the same tree, which V. Zakharov did.

(Three important steps in the action were the passage of VZ and YuL to the place of action – the climb over the service bridge made of pipes where a circle with the number 62 had been hung during an earlier action; their walk along the riverbank for approximately 250 meters; and, after the action, the walk further west along that same riverbank, through the forest where some hobos had set up some polyethylene tents for shelter, approximately 1000 meters to the place where the large metal Yaroslavsky Railroad bridge spanned the Yauza.)

The megaphone with Fedosova and the portrait of Ney were given to Leiderman as factography; the megaphone with Krivopolenova and the portrait of Murat, to Zakharov.
 

Moscow, Losinyi ostrov

12 November 2008

A. Monastyrski, V. Zakharov, Yu. Leiderman, E. Elagina, I. Makarevich,

D. Novgorodova, Y. Kalinsky, A. Silvestrov.