'A Little Duck's Nest...of Bad Words': The Sound Art and Visual Culture of the Russian Anti-Book Experiment, 1881-1932

这个项目考察了创新的多感官书籍，或称“反书籍”，通过二十世纪早期俄罗斯未来主义艺术家和作家的实验合作而产生。这是第一次深入研究这些反书籍的表演方面，包括在俄罗斯动荡的政治、文化和艺术发展的背景下，声音、文本、图像和混合材料的动态相互作用。该项目利用关注诗人维利米尔·赫列布尼科夫(Vlimir Khlebnikov，1885-1922)和阿列克谢·克鲁切尼科(Aleksei Kruchenykh，1886-1969)，以及画家米哈伊尔·拉里奥诺夫(Mikhail Larionov，1881-1964)的合作案例，以及一些著名的二次合作者，探索他们参与图书实验的情况，以及他们的结果如何与欧洲同行的结果一致或背离。这项研究基于对大量档案材料的审查(包括信件、照片、回忆录、对俄罗斯未来主义者公开辩论的评论、戏剧表演和即兴街头活动)；这项研究分析了大英图书馆的反图书收藏(这是一种很少被研究的资源，也为与其他藏品中的不同反图书副本进行比较提供了基础)，并对机构编目系统进行了比较审查，以确定更多经常未被识别的反图书。这项研究结合了视觉文化、文学、声音、表演和博物馆藏品，汇集并扩展了南希·佩洛夫的批评方法，她2016年的研究《爆炸性》专注于反图书的声学维度，视觉理论家约翰娜·德鲁克的《活动区》框架研究了反图书的多个材料和概念维度，作为第一个关注这些“反书籍”表演方面的跨学科研究，这篇论文将提供一种新的基于理论的类型学，将它们在俄罗斯不断变化的文化政治中的颠覆性角色定位，扩展和深化我们对艺术家书籍流派的理解，并帮助识别和编目公共/私人收藏中的此类作品。

This project examines the innovative multi-sensory books, or 'anti-books', produced through the experimental collaborations of the early twentieth-century Russian futurist artists and writers. It is the first in-depth study to focus on the performative aspects of these 'anti-books', comprising a dynamic interplay of sound, text, image, and mixed materials in the context of the turbulent political, cultural, and artistic developments in Russia. Using case studies focusing on the collaborations of the poets Velimir Khlebnikov (1885-1922) and Aleksei Kruchenykh (1886-1969), and the painter Mikhail Larionov (1881-1964), along with some notable secondary collaborators, the project explores their engagement in the book experiment and how their results aligned with or departed from those of their European counterparts. The research is based on examination of extensive archival material (including letters, photographs, memoirs, reviews of Russian futurist public debates, theatrical performances and impromptu street events); analysis of the British Library Collection of anti-books (a rarely examined resource that also provides the basis for comparisons with variant anti-book copies held in other collections) and a comparative review of institutional cataloguing systems in order to identify further antibooks, frequently unrecognised.Working at the intersection of visual culture, literature, sound, performance and museum collections, the research brings together and extends the critical methods of Nancy Perloff whose 2016 study 'Explodity' focused on the anti-books' sonic dimension, the visual theorist Johanna Drucker's 'zone of activity' framework to investigate the multiple material and conceptual dimensions of the anti-books, and Richard Schechner's performance theories to re-contextualise them.As the first interdisciplinary study to focus on performative aspects of these 'anti-books', the thesis will provide a new theory-based typology that locates their subversive role within the shifting cultural politics of Russia, extends and deepens our understanding of the artist's book genre, and aids identification and cataloguing of such works in public/private collections.