26. THE DIVISION

The viewers (89 persons) were brought to a field and positioned facing a timbered slope opposite a trail that divided the forest. The group of viewers stationed itself 50 meters away from the forests’s wall, right before the perspective of the trail running upwards the forested slope. Soon one of the organizers appeared on the trail, descending. When he approached, it became apparent that he was carrying a white block on his back, with attached reels of thread that were unreeling as he walked on (deeper in the forest, invisible to the audience, two other participants stood and held the threads’ ends). Coming up the audience, the participant with wooden block passed through the crowd that became divided in two by hanging strip of threads. It also became apparent that the block had a trapezoidal elevation on its back where tape recorder rested, taping the sound of spinning reels (although viewers were unaware of that). After covering another 100 meters (total length of the thread was 200 meters), the participant with the block disappeared from sight.

Meanwhile two organizers calculated the viewers in each half of the divided group and gave 62 envelopes to 62 viewers. Inscription on the enveloped said: “The DIVISION of a group into 42 (on the right) and 47 (on the left) (the numbers were hand-written) TOOK PLACE on the 29th of May, 1983. Collective actions”. Inside each envelope there was one half (right or left) of a picture, text, scheme or photograph cut in two (a total of 31).

The reverse sides of pictures were labeled “LEFT” and “RIGHT” respectively,  and in upper corners there were numbers – i.e. 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b etc. After distribution of the envelopes one of the participants began shouting these numbers as follows: “Those who have pictures 1a and 1b, please come up!” etc. Viewers approached a photographer in pairs, combining halves of the pictures to get a solid one and in such manner photographed for “double portraits”. In the end of the action a group of viewers without enveloped left without being photographed.

 

Moscow region, Yaroslavskata railway line, station Kalistovo.

29th May, 1983

A.Monastyrski, N.Alexeev, G.Kizevalter, I.Yavorsky, I.Makarevich, E.Elagina,
Tod Bludo, N.Panitkov, S.Romashko.

S.Gundlakh, I.Bakstein, A.Zhigalov, N.Abalakova, E.Barabanov, Yu.Albert, L.Bazhanov, S.Anufriev, V.Mironenko, S.Mironenko, V.Naumets, A.Anikeev, I.Nakhova,B.Orlov, V.Gribkov, D.Prigov, V.Sorokin, M.Konstantinova, S.Bordachev, A.Filippov, K.Zvezdochetov, V.Zakharov, V.Skersis, Leticia + 65 others.