58.  THE TENT – 2.  (To N.Alexeev)

The invited audience (11 persons) gathered by metro station Scherbakovskaya at 10 PM. Then the action’s organizers together with the audience headed for the scene of action. The viewers were prompted to walk in trail while maintaining a certain distance between each other.

Walking in such a  manner, the organizers and the audience reached Prospekt Mira, turned to Grafsky lane, walked along the railway, crossed a bridge over station Moscow-3 and entered the Sokolniki park.

It was already rather dark when the group stopped in the beginning of a Sokolniki alley. There the audience was prompted to rest for a while.

Before detaching themselves from the group of viewers the organizers asked I.Bakshtein to put on binocular glasses and watch the alley’s remote end. He was prompted to ask the audience to start moving forward after seeing a red light flashing at a distance.

After detaching some meters from the audience, the organizers stretched a rope across the alley, attaching it to two trees at two meters above the ground. To the rope’s center a big signal lantern was attached, its reflecting mirror facing the ground. Under the lantern a cardboard circle (75 cm in diameter) was put on the ground, then with the help of nails it was enclosed with a low cardboard fence (4.5 cm high). Then a transparent PVC film was casted over the rope and fixed in the form of a tent (the lantern and cardboard circle appeared to be inside it). After that two electrical toy cars were put inside the tent on the circle. While moving chaotically, they ran against each other and the fence. Simultaneously with the start of the two toy cars the organizers switched on the lantern’s reflector which threw light upon the circle with moving cars and the red signal lamp.

Upon seeing the red flashing light in the depth of the alley, Bakstein prompted the audience to move towards the source of light. After approaching the tent and examining it the viewers joined the organizers waiting nearby.

Then the organizers and the audience left the park, the tent with red flashing light and moving cars (it is unknown for how long the cars and the lantern remained functional – until the depletion of the batteries or until the first pedestrian who decided to take them) remained in the park.

 

Moscow, Sokolniki park

15th July, 1989.

 A.Monastyrski, S.Haensgen, G.Kizewalter.

 I.Bakshtein, A.Alchuk, M.Ryklin, E.Solomon, L.Schmitz, M.Tupitsina,
V.Tupitsin + 4 persons.