Alexei Borisov, Olga Nosova and VTOL
Player 0-8-0, 2011

Installation: audio-visual object of video-monitor on stand, four loudspeakers on stands, remote controller, audio/video synthesizer, cassette player, adapters, cables
approx. 200 x 200 x 150 (height) cm
Commissioned by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary


A collaborative project between three Moscow-based sound artists, Player 0-8-0 functions as an audio-visual installation as well as an interactive tool where abstract images and sounds are transformed through audience participation, and it further extends into a number of live performances. Using audio-visual material drawn from the deconstruction, reconfiguration and re-programming of a variety of objects, ranging from electronic toys to music instruments and custom-made devices, the artists apply the term “circuit bending” to describe these processes of audio-visual production, thereby relating them to the mechanical manipulation of a perfect geometrical shape into a non-conventional form. Referring to audio material, this can be understood as the creation of sounds outside a normative system by dismissing the intended use of (sound-producing) objects or through constructing new audio devices. The reference of a circular shape also relates to the numbers 0 and 8 mentioned in the work’s title, which hint at an “endless process of reproduction” (Borisov), with the synthesizers used for the work being able to process sound continuously over a period of 24 hours.

A combined object consisting of cassette players, audio and video synthesizers, video-monitors and loudspeakers, Player 0-8-0 investigates the transformation of audio signals into video signals and as a result, analog information into digital as a process of codification. It also engages with processes of de-codification and re-codification through its unconventional use of objects in order to create sounds. The artists’ emphasis on “code” as a key element of their installation, however, suggests that their use of the term is stretching beyond digital language into the social sphere where the production of meaning with its relation to language and perception is positioned within a shifting network of codes. Allowing free interaction with the installation also ties Player 0-8-0 to more performative aspects of sound production. – Bettina Brunner


Alexei Borisov: *1960 in Moscow, Russia | Living and working in Moscow, Russia
Olga Nosova: *in Moscow, Russia | Living and working in Berlin, Germany