Eda Čufer. THE DETONATION OF A GAZE.

Aleksander Brener, in one of his talks during the Transnacionala, characterised the artistic work of Vadim Fishkin as a metaphysical embodiment expressing Fishkin's ability to create an unusual and even esoteric feeling or condition, as having the quality of communicating with the everyman.

The project "Dedicated to…", exhibited in the Kapelica gallery in June and July, is based upon a simple situation. An object is situated in the middle of the gallery space, a sort of console where the visitor is instructed to press the button and state his or her name into the microphone. The next few seconds convey the voice of a man, the voice of Vadim Fishkin, who says "dedicated to" and then the first unusual and surprising moment transpires as visitors then hears their own voices stating their own names and at the same time determine that the show of fireworks triggered under the ceiling of the gallery is dedicated to their own individual self. The second unusual and surprising moment occurs when the visitor realizes that with this, the artistic event that they came to view is over.

Applying an economocal strategy that situates the viewer concisely in a situation where they are the central and principal figure of the entire artistic performance, Fishkin literally dedicates the episode to each individual visitor. At the same time he distinctly formulates the more extensive and even earnest question of who constitutes the public that visits artistic exhibits in contemporary urban societies.

The experience that the viewer is exposed to, on the sensual level, truly does seem unusual, esoteric; after all, the viewer is placed in a position of disorientation.

The visitor is abruptly subjugated to the terms of the empty space - in the centre of which is the object, reminiscent of an oratorical platform or a monument and which tones the entire space as extremely alien and cold on the one hand, and gives it particular ceremonious and festive dimensions on the other. While the viewer came to watch things and events which do not necessarily require a relationship to be established, the viewer is provoked into a relationship that develops in an unexpected manner. From someone sounding over a soundtrack, that is, from some far point, the viewer discovers that the performance is dedicated to…, and before these exalted words evoking thrillingly immense emotions register in the viewer's thoughts, the viewer, with their own voice sounding from another far point, responds that the event is dedicated to their own self; although even before the viewer is prepared for the experience of the performance that is dedicated to his/her own self, the episode is over in the blink of an eye.

If we wanted to describe the sensual effect with words, that is (as Brener would define it) he metaphysical embodiment of the situation, we could say that there is an unusual turnabout: this is a real relationship that is registered in the structure of the event, it occurs as the two voices connect. This creates an intense and even erotic harmonisation between the author and the visitor for a few seconds, which then elapses with a jerky and unexpectedly itinerant effect.

Fishkin's artistic opus, if other projects are also taken into consideration, is based upon a disciplined creative strategy founded on the act of asking questions where there are no self-evident or inconsequential questions or answers. On the contrary, his projects are designed as some sorts of devices which transubstantiate self-evident and inconsequential content into something enigmatic and interesting. Who visits contemporary artistic exhibits? This represents a question for him, or who are angels; or what is at the other end of the world if the world is cut through right from the point where we stand, or what are the contents of his head. Thus, despite the complete diversity of projects on the sensual level, the basis of Fishkin's work is created by the identifiable relationship between the author and the object that the author is dealing with, equally complex and interesting. Similar to the manner of creating a situation that identifies the visitor in the "Dedicated to…" project, the author constructed an object years ago in the PROEKTIKA project which he named a device for catching angels. At the "Exchanged Heads" exhibit Fishkin, together with his colleague Nicole Carstens, analysed the question of authorship by exchanging and mixing up artefacts, that is, the contents and forms from their two objects, according to a third person's plan, their colleague Yuri Leiderman. In his most recent project, "The Other Side", Fishkin systematically dealt with the technology and methodology of simulation and the objectification of the answer to the question of what is on the other side of the world if the world is cut through right from the point where we stand.

Cognate to Vadim Fishkin's inception, Bertold Brecht established his critical methodology at the beginning of the century when he rendered the so-called 'dispossession effect' as a skill at posing simple questions concerning apparently self-evident things. For instance, what is a watch that is worn on the wrist? It is a device for measuring time, of course. However, how did it come into being and for what purpose? And what does it necessarily measure? What is time anyway? A skill at questioning is a method that, as a rule, always brings us to the conclusion that we really dont know very much about the most self-evident objects, as were not forced to think about them.

Who constitutes the public that visits contemporary artistic exhibits? What is an exhibit? What is art? What is aesthetic delight? The situation presented by "Dedicated to…" anticipates such potential questions precisely in the manner in which it creates the reception of the event. That is, the centre of the event is not the object that is being dedicated for a look and then observed by the viewer from the side, but rather the disoriented look of the viewer bestowed upon the viewer from the side by the brief dedication of fireworks, which at the same time takes the look and transforms it from a passive subject into a self-testimonial object, into a live sculpture of the event.