Soviefy
In 2019-2021 Dani Chё and Galina Shevchenko developed a collaborative audio visual performance practice they call Soviefy. Soviefy is a verb/noun neologism that simulates nostalgia for non-existent yet vaguely recognizable, Soviet-rooted aesthetics through radical collaborative improvisation. The artists have created immersive experience practice that fuses contemporary multi-media performative modes with meticulously honed elements and techniques specific to the Soviet school of state-sponsored art production.
Through improvisational performance of obscure soviet songs (Dani Che) & live video mixing of animated sequences & installation objects (Galina Shevchenko), artists have been trying to extract the thin layer of transcendence that powers the puzzling memetic persistence of soviet utopia and its near comical obsession with human omnipotence, technology and collective sacrifice.
After several performance iterations it became apparent that the anscendence they were looking for, was indeed something tangible, something that could be obtain through algorithmic manipulation of poetic metaphors programmed in the lyrics of the songs.
Soviefy Aerograd
10.12.2019
Soviefy/Aerograd – is a bizarre collaborative performance of Soviet propaganda songs. The 3rd episode in the Soviefy series, it plots a disastrous journey of a soviet 30s pilot to a futuristic floating city hovering over taiga. It explores soviet obsessions with flight and sacrifice, incorporates elements of socialist realism, fetish art, drag, noise, punk.
vocals and performance art - Dani Chё, video performance - Galina Shevchenko, rope art - Ramin Takloo-Bighash, noise art - Slowerson, featuring Sergei Galski and Suvik Suvorovets of the Multivitamins.
Soviefy Zeta Tucanae at Chicago Art Department
05.31.2019
Zeta Tucanae – is a nearby star, which may have a life-bearing planet in its planetary system. If such planets existed, soviet ideologues imagined, humanity would eventually colonize all of them. This interstellar colonization fantasy is explored through an omni-media performance of Soviet songs about conquest of nature and conservation.
Live video performance by Galina Shevchenko and voice/action performance – by Dania Chё, Mike Brankis, Sergey Galski, Sasha Suvorovets, makeup - by Irina Fimov. Open choir and volunteers - Katya Bitkina, Diana Kurkovsky, Anna Kreinin, Maria Vishnevskaya.
Soviefy Iota Centauri at the Ice House Gallery
4.12.2019
On 4.12.2019, first bits of information about the first human spaceflight (Gagarin, USSR, 4.12.1961) will reached Iota Centauri, an A-type-main-sequence star located only 58 light years away. Two-cycle celebration of this fact took place on Earth.
Featured Artists:
Galina Shevchenko - visuals. video art.
Slowerson - noises. textures/background.
De C4e - voices, installation
Suvik - guitar/percussion
Sergei Galski - keys
Choir - voices
hosted by Hannah Litvan and the Ice House Gallery Evanston