Антон Батагов – Оптический обман

Я написал “Оптический обман” в марте 2020 года – в период карантина, когда все люди искусства вдруг оказались в ситуации “болдинской осени”. Как и большинство моих вещей, эта музыка уходит корнями в разные стили и жанры разных времен, и всё это объединено минималистскими традициями. Этот цикл песен – продолжение моего сотрудничества с известными и уникальными кросс-жанровыми музыкантами, каждый из которых – единственный в своем роде.

Итак, путешествие длиною в 1 час 20 минут в Петербург-Ленинград, где два поэта – Александр Пушкин и Даниил Хармс – жили, работали и умерли. И тот, и другой хорошо знали, что такое цензура и взаимоотношения с государственной машиной репрессий. В “Оптическом обмане” эти два гениальных человека, между которыми 100 лет, пишут один и тот же текст, пользуясь одной и той же навигацией, ведущей сквозь сансару к свободе. В сансаре – как известно, “труд и горе”, и жизнь длится всего 37 лет. А свобода – это такое место, куда закрыт вход Бенкендорфу и цензорам Детиздата. Там Чайковский слушает БГ, Шостакович играет на клавишах в поп-механике, а Семён Семёнович, сняв очки, смотрит на сосну – и в этот самый момент достигает просветления.

Антон Батагов

Optical Illusion is a journey to St.Petersburg/Leningrad, a city where two great Russian poets, Alexander Pushkin and Daniil Kharms, lived, worked and died. Both of them were censored and persecuted by the repression machine. In Optical Illusion these two geniuses separated by a century are writing one and the same text and using the same navigation that leads them through samsara to freedom. In samsara, both of them had short lives limited to 37 years. The entrance to freedom is closed to their censors and torturers. Freedom is a place where Tchaikovsky listens to BG (a Russian iconic rock star), Shostakovich plays keyboards in a band, and Semyon Semyonovich from Kharms’ poem looks at the pine tree with his glasses on, and at this very moment he attains enlightenment.

Anton Batagov

Alexander Pushkin (1899 – 1937) was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist. He is considered to be the greatest Russian poet of all times and the founder of modern Russian literature. Pushkin was committed to social reform and emerged as a spokesman for literary radicals. That angered the czar and led to Pushkin’s transfer from the capital: he was sent into exile. He was later pardoned but continued to live under the czar’s close scrutiny. In early 1837 Pushkin was fatally wounded in a duel.

Daniil Kharms (1905 – 1942) was a Soviet avant-gardist and absurdist poet, writer and dramatist. In 1931 he was arrested as a member of “a group of anti-Soviet writers” and exiled. Kharms continued to write for children’s magazines when he returned from exile. His plans for more performances and plays were curtailed, and Kharms receded into a mostly private writing life. In 1941 he was arrested again. To avoid execution, he simulated insanity. The military tribunal ordered him to be kept in the psychiatric ward of the ‘Kresty’ prison where he died of starvation in 1942.
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Alexander Korenkov vocals, acoustic guitar
Asya Sorshneva violin, electronics
Sergey Kalachev “Grebstel” bass guitar, electronics
Vladimir Zharko drums
Anton Batagov piano, electronics, voice