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Sonic experimentation in a power station

A series of installations and site-specific performances will investigate the acoustic qualities of the former GES-2 power station. GLEB LEONOV

Over 40 musicians and sound pioneers from around the world, including dub legend Lee Scratch Perry, British producer Adrian Sherwood and influential composer Eliane Radigue, will hold a series of performances and site-specific installations in the former GES-2 power station just across the river from the Kremlin as part of a week-long event devoted to exploring the sonic possibilities of the building.

Geometry of Now, which runs from Feb. 20 to 27, kicks off with a program of installations investigating the acoustic potential of the power station, with live performances, including collaborations involving Russian and foreign artists, beginning on Feb. 22. A series of talks and workshops will run during the daytime, including an audience with Russian composer Eduard Artemyev, who wrote the scores to Tarkovsky's films “Solaris,” “Stalker” and “The Mirror.”

Curator Mark Fell, a multi-disciplinary artist based in the UK, is enthusiastic about the potential of the project, describing the “temporal physiognomy” of the pre-Soviet building as its most interesting aspect: “It is a place where possible histories and possible futures interrogate one another in a play of reciprocal disturbance,” he says.

The project is being organized by V-A-C Foundation, which is overseeing the redesign of the GES-2 building as a new contemporary arts space.

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