Using the exhibition as his medium, Arseny Zhilyaev (b.1984, RU/IT) works in the spaces between fiction and non-fiction. His projects examine the legacy of Soviet museology and the philosophy of Russian Cosmism that represents a broad range of philosophical, scientific and artistic programs, which aimed to overcome mortality, to achieve resurrection for all who ever lived and pursue space exploration. Zhilyaev produces artworks for a potential future provoking speculations on what historical context should have generated them.

Arseny Zhilyaev (1984, RU/IT), The Keepers. One-dimensional Sphere Game, 2020
Mixed media installation
Commissioned by Manifesta 13 Marseille
Supported by V-A-C Foundation
Courtesy of the artist
The uniforms are designed and produced in collaboration with Fly Nowhere Intl. and Phiware
Poems translated by Brian Droitcour, Walid Soliman and Yvan Mignot
Graphic design by Alexandra Ivanchikova

The installation presents fragments of a museum exhibition from a potential future. The costume display commemorates a football match from the dystopian future of Marseille, an ultra-defensive version of the game with only goalkeepers left. The teams are police, local residents, activists, artists – social groups often involved in conflict. These four sculptural displays are hosted by different institutions throughout the city: a historic 19th-century bourgeois home transformed into a museum; the residential skyscraper Bel Horizon from the 1950s, which is in need of renovation and the new luxurious rental experience of Hôtel Dieu Intercontinental. The artist composed four poems in Russian then translated them into Arabic, English and French. These are incorporated into the team uniforms, thus exploring futurism and football as a way of communication. Linguistic acts become a playing field; a one-dimensional sphere unfolds into a competition and the possibility of translation as a tool for achieving linguistic solidarity acquires important political significance.

Arseny Zhilyaev, The Gravity, 2020
Mixed media installation, Live Action Role-Playing game
Commissioned by Manifesta 13 Marseille
Supported by V-A-C Foundation
In-kind support by Pébéo
Courtesy of the artist
In collaboration with Aziz Boumediene, Florence Ballongue, Pierre-Louis Albert, Daniel Maurin, Jean Claude Deleville, Annie Deleville, Mohamed Ben Aoun, Moualhi Tlili, Vincent Boulay, Sam Khebizi
Performing and script editing by Nika Ham, Asya Volodina and Aziz Boumediene
Performance by Laurane Fahrni and Leeloo Gaillard
Music re-masteing by Nikolay Karabinovych
Graphic design by Alexandra Ivanchikova

The Gravity project developed out of Arseny Zhilyaev’s ongoing experiments with live action role-playing (LARPing) – a genre of real-life role-playing game where participants negotiate their actions according to a shared script. The Gravity is also an on-going, openended collaboration with the Institute for Mastering of Time (IMT). The organisation owes its name to the Soviet cosmist Valerian Muravyov (1885-1932), who proposed the possibility of scientifically ‘mastering time’. His proposal drew on a unique mix of mathematical set theory, Henri Bergson’s philosophy of time and Nikolai Fedorov’s idea of technological immortality. For The Gravity, the Institute’s employees known as ‘Eternals’ have come to Marseille from the future, disguised as a small circle of art lovers. Their workshop is held in an ordinary apartment in The Bel Horizon towers built in 1956 and 1962, which are now in urgent need of renovation. Participants at these clandestine IMT meetings are encouraged to try their hand at handling the cosmic force of Gravity and mastering time in order to imagine possible futures for their homes. In addition to visitors, the IMT has also engaged performers in editing the script, improvising the game and preparing the workshop for the public.

Aziz Boumediene, Ana Chronism, 2020
Polaroid photographs, inkjet prints, manuscripts
Commissioned by Manifesta 13 Marseille
Courtesy of the artist

Presented as part of Arseny Zhilyaev’s project, Aziz Boumediene’s installation takes its title from the Arabic equivalent of ‘I’m chronism’. It presents materials collected by the artist over several months of his work in the residential complex with the Bel Horizon inhabitants. The polaroid photographs of local residents are signed with a date from the future, which the residents could imagine themselves in. Boumediene collected descriptions of the building’s present condition, environment and public perception, but also what it might become in the near or distant future.

* Work conceived for the occasion of Manifesta 13 Marseille

https://www.arsenyzhilyaev.art/en