Social Narratives in Architectural Forms: Sonia Leber and David Chesworth’s “Zaum Tractor”

In yesterday's post we looked at an artist using clothes in an art installation that doubles up as a political protest against Vladimir Putin. Let's continue the Russian thread today with a duo mainly creating immersive audio and video installations about pre-linguistic communication and architectural language.

Sonia Leber and David Chesworth usually explore architectural forms and try to read their symbolism, analysing the social narratives that may be embedded in these landmarks and exploring their capacity to influence individual's behaviour. The duo brought at the 56th International Art Exhibition in Venice their 2013 work entitled "Zaum Tractor".

Shot in Rostov-on-Don (where the artists did a 3-month residency), Russia, with additional filming in Armenia and Georgia, this 2-screen HD video work mainly examines issues of individual freedom and collective belonging in Russia.

This juxtaposition of themes is represented by a visual clash between past and present, the rational and the transrational, with individuals reading and performing "zaum poetry", images of dramatic Constructivist Soviet architecture including the tractor-shaped Gorky Theater in Rostov-on-Don, military and religious ceremonies and shots of young people diving inside a derelict roofless building, a pre-revolutionary warehouse, filled with water and turned into a rather unusual swimming pool.

The term "zaum" was created by the Russian Futurist poet Aleksei Kruchenych (1886-1968). The word was supposed to describe his "transrational" language, a sort of universal primordial form of speech in which sounds embodied rather than signified their referents (the poet's dream of universal communication failed since only other futurists could understand his language).

The most poetic shots in this video remain the ones of the young people perched on ledges and beams before plunging into the deep water below.

Just like language avoids fixed meanings in non-signifying zaum poetry revealing pure sounds and wild rhythms and turning therefore into a universal form of communication, the warehouse has lost its original purpose and therefore its main architectural meaning. Colonised by groups of young people it becomes a symbol of life after ideology, a leisure place where ordinary acts of bravery take place and where the universal language of youth develops and thrives.