Resignation

Sounds from random videos, diary entries, voice messages, the city soundscape: the contents of the author’s telephone and those of his friends turned inside out become an uncompromising consideration of nostalgia, the personal relationship to history, and the nature of memories.

«Nostalgia. Is any phenomenon more poisonous while being so hopeful?

For most of the past decade I was studying (but not conceptualizing) the problem of nostalgia and the mechanisms of memory. For some time, I have been considering how damaging the constant return to the past can be. An addition to this internal dialogue is my thoughts that we have become accustomed to noting only good and pleasant things in the past, that which helps us to build our usual picture of a world which we would not wish to see destroyed. A year ago, my text about the relationship to the past would have been completely different. Now I think that exploring history and memory, both my own and in general, is something without which we cannot move on.

My first step toward this (re)conceptualization is this work. History that begins with the personal, which, as we know, is political, can be rewritten more than once against your will. The answer to this may be to document your own perception of events. And its best embodiment, in my view, is not your own memory but that of your smartphone.

Most of the recordings used to create Resignation were made in the first two weeks after February 24. They are mainly videos shot by me and my friends (used with their permission). To be honest, it’s impossible to understand what’s going on in these videos. Most of them involve a large number of filters. This is an artistic decision, my commentary on how unreliable memories can be and how silence (or, in the case of Resignation, reticence) is a distinguishing feature of public expression in the Russian context.

As a bridge between my own compositions, I chose sounds from St. Petersburg recorded by my friend for her own work; since I know the city better than the country as a whole, I believe I should talk only about it. Undoubtedly, the soundscape of St. Petersburg may not have changed in a year, but that does not mean what is happening in the world has no influence on the city. However, I deliberately leave that influence out of shot (literally, by removing the video part and leaving only sounds). For the listener, my work can be a reminder of how much personal perception of upheaval and catastrophes (my tracks were created from memories of February 2022) sound louder, more chaotic and severe than the quiet and calm perception of the community (the untouched everyday sounds of the city).

Resignation is an attempt to look at the events that happened a year ago through the prism of personal experience. The destruction of the picture of the world that I tried to express in sound is something I see not only as an ending but also as a new beginning, although this is not something I am optimistic about. I am more realistic about the fact that we need to look from the opposite side at those maxims on which the old worldview was constructed. After looking back in this way, we have the opportunity to move on. It turns out that memories are not something we need for nostalgia but to make a more sober evaluation of events, initially moving from the point at which we are now. There is no other way.»

Cover: Courtesy Artem Makarsky

Bio

Artem Makarsky (Intern) is a musician working with field recordings and found samples. He has released three albums — Probation Period (2017), an era of lush (2019), and Cancelled Call (2022). His interests include ambient, noise, non-music, exploring the subconscious in everyday sounds and its liberation, and working with memory, the world around us, and culture. He has written for music and culture sections in most of the leading online publications in Russia.