Collective actions
83. THE TUBE. (Two radios)
The invited audience (25 persons) was brought to the edge of a snowy field. After detaching themselves from the audience some 30 meters deeper into the field, two of the action’s participants connected two ventilation tubes (made of tin foil, 16 cm in diameter each), stretched them as long as possible (while accordion-pleated, each was 1 meter long), resulting in a 6 meters long tube, which was then horizontally fixed on the snow. Then both participants picked up small transistor radios, turned them on and kept shuffling stations for some time. After stopping at certain frequencies (different for each radio), the participants put the working radios into both sides of the tube, approximately 80 centimeters deep. Since the foil blocked radio signals, the sound died out. Then the participants tied up the tube with wires in four places – two constrictions in 30 centimeters from both ends, another two in one meter and a half. Therefore, both radio sets became isolated inside two tied-up sections and divided from the middle part of the tube, 3 meters long. Then N.Panitkov, using a bookbinder’s knife, cut two holes in the sections with the radios inside. After stripping the holes open sounds became audible again. By that time the audience had already approached the tube and could see from a close distance the process of putting the radios inside the tube, tying it up and cutting the holes, and also hear the resuming of sounds from the radios lying inside the tube and by that moment visible through the cuts.
After the distribution of factual sheets among the audience everyone left the scene of action, leaving on the field the tube with the sounding radios inside it.
Moscow, Izmailovsky park
13th of March, 1998
N. Panitkov, A. Monastyrski, E. Elagina, N. Alexeev.
A.Petrelli, M.Tupitsyn, S.Letov, V.Volyak, N.Palazhchenko, Kh.Oroshakov, M.Chuikova, V.Sorokin, M.Ryklin, A.Alchuk, Yu.Leiderman, P.Pepperstein, Yu.Semenov, E.Bobrinskaya (+ 6 or 8 persons, three of them from the "Arte" TV channel crew)