The Ways of Freedom: Experimental Music in Leningrad/St. Petersburg, 1980-1996

该项目旨在探索后期和后苏联即兴音乐的文化和（生物）政治意义，跟随即兴演奏家，作曲家和前卫钢琴家谢尔盖·库列欣及其圈子的职业生涯。在1981年他的第一张个人专辑《自由之路》之后，库列欣成为列宁格勒/圣彼得堡彼得堡非正式音乐文化的关键人物，直到1996年去世。库列欣最为人所知的是流行力学的领导者，这是一个自发的合奏团，以其荒谬的戏剧效果，不断变化的成员，以及在单一表演中的风格转变而闻名;融合了高和低，旧和新，在一个折衷的拼贴画中，强调“中间”流行力学代表了20世纪80年代列宁格勒现场的大量即兴表演者，因为许多人都是合奏团的一部分。此外，库列欣作品的时间跨度提供了一个完美的透镜，通过它可以更好地理解改革时期和苏联解体后的文化生产--这一时期很少受到关注（Etkind 2014）。研究库列欣的生活环境可以为我们提供关于苏联衰落的新视角，并阐明随之而来的文化转变。在唯一一篇讨论库列欣文化作品（关于他个人与新闻媒体的互动）的文章中，尤尔恰克写道，库列欣“非凡的艺术项目的”历史和分析“仍在等待它的作者”（2011：311）--这是我想要填补的空白。库列欣在音乐学研究中的缺席使这个项目产生了新的见解。有许多实验音乐的历史记录（Piekut 2011，Adlington 2013，Born et al. 2017），但这些都明确地集中在西欧和美国的背景下。通过将研究扩展到俄罗斯的背景下，该项目旨在扩大其目前的边界之外的实验主义奖学金。我的目标是通过遵循Kurekhin的职业生涯来推进这些理解，与Yurchak（2006）类似的批评背景，专注于音乐/声音。在音乐学方面，Schmelz（2009）利用Yurchak的概念作为他分析苏联作曲家的出发点-尽管仅限于艺术音乐类型。因此，施梅尔茨的研究虽然相关，但在范围上与这个项目有很大的不同。最近的文献（Piekut 2019）已经开始分析“本土先锋派”，指的是“与文学机构没有完全脱钩”的艺术家，他们占据了“与之不同的区域”（Levitz and Piekut 2020）。与尤尔查克的vnye（“内部/外部”）概念有重大的未探索的重叠，定义了苏联后期生活的阈体验。库列欣的音乐完美地扩展、推进和研究了这两个概念。通过研究库列欣音乐中的生物政治模糊性，我将提出本土先锋派作为一个稳定的概念来分析，它虽然源于一个特殊的，但可以反映出更大的先锋派表演。在推进库列欣音乐环境的第一次研究中，我的目标是：* 确定库列欣作品中的阈社会审美如何在音乐本身、表演和表演者互动中产生（生物）政治颠覆;将生物政治文学与声音/音乐研究联系起来，推进并解决问题。研究库列欣对未来主义者（如马雅可夫斯基）的影响。当没有（后）苏联的未来是可以想象的（Yurchak 2006），Kurekhin与“过去-未来”的接触告诉我们苏联整体的艺术解决方案。考察库列欣在20世纪90年代向民族主义的转变;发现讽刺（音乐）颠覆的局限性（经常被认为是一种固有的激进流派，威尔默，2020），并找出晚期文化和后苏联文化之间的区别。探索非苏联艺术家对Kurekhin的影响-从凯奇（美国）到Einsturzán Neubauten（德国）-到Frolova-Walker（2018）所呼吁的“世界背景下的俄罗斯音乐”。

This project aims to explore the cultural and (bio)political significance of late and post-Soviet improvised music by following the career of improviser, composer and avant-garde pianist Sergei Kurekhin, and his circle. Following his first solo release, The Ways of Freedom, in 1981, Kurekhin became a key figure in the informal music culture of Leningrad/St. Petersburg until his death in 1996. Kurekhin is best known as leader of Pop Mechanics, a spontaneous ensemble known for its absurd theatrics, ever-fluctuating membership, and shifting of styles within single performances; fusing high- and low-brow, old and new, in an eclectic collage that emphasised the 'in-between' Pop Mechanics represent a significant number of improvisers of the 1980s Leningrad scene, as many were, at one time, part of the ensemble. Additionally, the temporal span of Kurekhin's output offers a perfect lens through which to better understand cultural production during perestroika and after the fall of the Soviet Union - a period noted to have received little attention (Etkind 2014). Studying Kurekhin's milieu offers new insight into Soviet decline and illuminates the cultural shift that followed.In the only text to discuss Kurekhin's cultural output (regarding his personal engagement with news media), Yurchak writes that the 'history and analysis' of Kurekhin's 'remarkable artistic project still awaits its author' (2011:311) - a lacuna I aim to fill. The absence of Kurekhin from musicological scholarshipmakes this project fertile for new insight. There are numerous historiographies of experimental music (Piekut 2011, Adlington 2013, Born et al. 2017), yet these are focussed explicitly on Western Europe and U.S. contexts. By extending research into a Russian context, this project aims to widen experimentalist scholarship outside of its current borders. I aim to advance these understandings by following Kurekhin's career with a similar critical background to Yurchak (2006), focussed towards music/sound. In musicology, Schmelz (2009) has utilised Yurchak's concepts as starting points for his analysis of Soviet composers - though limited only to the genre of art music. Thus, Schmelz's research, while relevant, significantly differs in scope to this project.Recent literature (Piekut 2019) has begun to analyse the 'vernacular avant-garde', referring to artists 'not entirely delinked from the literate establishment,' that occupy 'a zone distinct from it' (Levitz and Piekut 2020). There is significant unexplored overlap with Yurchak's underlying concept of vnye ('inside/outside') that defines the liminal experience of late-Soviet life. The music of Kurekhin is situated perfectly to expand, advance and investigate both concepts. Through studying the biopolitical indistinction of Kurekhin's music, I will advance the vernacular avant-garde as a stable concept useful for analysis, that, whilst emanating from a the particular, can reflect back on avant-garde performance writ large.In advancing the first study of Kurekhin's musical milieu, I aim to:* Identify how the liminal social aesthetic of Kurekhin's oeuvre produced (bio)political subversion in the music-itself, performance, and performer interactions; to connect, advance and problematise biopolitical literature to sound/music studies.* Investigate Kurekhin's influence of Futurists (such as Mayakovsky). When no (post-)soviet future was imaginable (Yurchak 2006), Kurekhin's engagement with 'past-futures' inform us of artistic solutions to Soviet totality.* Examine Kurekhin's shift towards Nationalism in the 1990s; to find the limits of ironic (musical) subversion (oft cited as an inherently radical genre, Wilmer 2020), and locate a distinction between late and post-Soviet culture.* Explore the influences of non-Soviet artists on Kurekhin - from Cage (USA) to Einsturzende Neubauten Germany) - to situate 'Russian music in a World Context', as called for by Frolova-Walker (2018).