179. CONCRETE ROAD

After walking for about 200 meters along the concrete road that crosses the field between Uspenskoye and Ubori from south to north (the field belongs to the Horse Farm No. 1), Andrei Monastyrski gave Sergei Sitar and Oksana Sarkisyan two laminated cards measuring 4 x 4 cm with QR codes (Sitar’ QR code led to a video of Performance No. 168 ‘Monument’ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwWliIYhv14, and Sarkisyan’s QR code led to the ‘Unreeling’ video, where the forest is being wrapped with white threads - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAJXfPWIuXQ).

After moving about 80 meters into the field from the concrete road to the west, Sitar threw his laminate into the grass, while Sarkisyan, approaching the birch trees on the east at a distance of approximately 40 meters from the concrete road, attached her card to the trunk of one of them with its face away from the concrete road so that it would not be visible to the passersby on the concrete road.*

After that, participants went to the ‘Nikolina Gora’ café and Andrei Monastyrski presented Sergei Sitar and Oksana Sarkisyan with two laminated cards, as factographic materials of the performance, with a photo from the series ‘Earthworks’ (1987) by Andrei Monastyrski and Elena Elagina, which was not included in the main series of photographs.

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September 9, 2024

Moscow Region, in the field between Uspenskoye and Ubori near Nikolina Gora

A. Monastyrsky, (S. Hänsgen as ‘Dunno’**), O. Sarkisyan, S. Sitara, D. Novgorodova

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* Here we can witness the almost complete deactivation of the CA’s discursive figure of ‘anonymous spectator,’ for it is unlikely that anyone will find these laminates. We kind of threw them into the abyss of the unfound, like a needle in a haystack or a pin in the sands of the Sahara, not counting in any way on an ‘anonymous spectator’ who could accidentally see the object (as we used do in our ‘Slogans’ or in the previous works of the late CA period with ‘pieces of paper, laminates and stickers’ on trees; previously, the figure of ‘anonymous spectator’ has always been an important motivation for the realization of our performances).

**At the time of the realization of the performance, Sabine Hänsgen was in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade and took a photo of Michelangelo Pistoletto’s work on a mirror with multicolored QR codes on his body, which also led to his previous works; Sabine Hänsgen was not aware of the plot and timing of the ‘Concrete Road’ performance.