As always, better later than never.
Book design, production for and together with Yaniya Mikhalina, Colonial Mәdness: Feminist-Indigenous Cosmologies, PhD in Artistic Research.
From Yaniya’s invitations, I contribute with design and produciton of five books. Five evocations of to be in space and time exceeding those “governed by neoliberal sanity” (to quote Yaniya).
It’s not fair to say “I did these books” — the whole process from when we first time outlined the project to the end when I weighed and packed everything for shipping to Oslo we went together. It would not happen without all the contributors, none of whom left me indifferent for what they said and did. These books are heavy-weight with words we much need to heard, reread, keep close, repeat to themselves and share with all who we care and who cares about us.
The making process is far more exciting than any attempt to describe it afterwards. How to squeeze in one publication all the ups and downs we had together? Challenging was to do not overdoing with design — when form prevails over the essence of what a book is going to tell you. Challenging was to meet available small run options and what I have in mind. I love this unpolished reality of labor when tiredness disappears in one moment because the solution is found after hours of attempts and errors; or the right tint of pink appears incidentally; the almost discarded concept becomes a foundation; suddenly the damn printer don’t jamming paper not intended to be used for printing on in the first place. The design is about doubts and uncertainties, trust and readiness to be not right, not sure, not ready, not pleased but keep doing. It’s about the feedback and attentative hearing what a friend said. Thank you, dear friend, for the chance to recall what I always loved to do one more time.
DiSP
Digital Slide Projector.
Artist and curator Lidiia Griaznova (@relational_self )approached me with the idea of creating a machine for switching slides. The Kodak 4000 series projectors were used as a reference for the mechanics and visual slide transitions, but the project was implemented using modern DLP projectors.
The mechanical design is inspired by cantilever bicycle brakes, many of which I’ve worked with over the years. A smiley face adds a playful touch to this small bit of madness.
A slideshow media player was programmed on a Raspberry Pi, which switches slides and controls the lens shutter via a servo motor. All parts are 3D printed from PLA plastic.
In the future, I plan to implement manual control via OSC from a phone for convenient setup of the projector during exhibitions.
Additionally, I’ll share the source code, printable parts, and all project data openly on our website once it’s ready.
Photo/video production: @nkar_studio
Set designer: @dzhannatik
Photographer: @mitya_lyalin
CAA—61 Gustavo Matamoros
Glasshouse — Yerevan (2023) 06’00”
Excerpt from the site-specific sound art installation created for the atrium at Yerevan Botanical Garden commissioned by CYFEST 15, 2023.
Emerging from four speakers, this piece comprises pure tones meticulously crafted to resonate and invigorate the architectural space of the greenhouse’s inner glass atrium at Yerevan Botanical Garden. The atrium, aptly described as a UFO-like structure, houses lush tropical and subtropical vegetation, along with several small ponds teeming with fish. This environment reminded me of South Florida, and inspired me to incorporate recordings of Cuban tree frogs that I have collected at Everglades National Park near Miami over the years.
Gustavo Matamoros is a sound artist and composer living and working in Miami since 1979.
Text by Gustavo Matamoros
Curated by Sergei Komarov @depth_dept , Lidiia Griaznova @relational_self
Mastering, lathe cut by Sergei Dmitriev @prpl_uncl
Release date: May 8, 2026
Images: Gustavo Matamoros, Edith Bunimovich
Not Now. Stolen Images and Galileo’s Broken Lens
2024—present time
@relational_self@narmalna
There will always be no proper time for the necessary distance to grasp what just happened and, more — to predict what comes next. The economy of doomscrolling, media outlets, rumours and experts of all sorts are working hard on converting attention into extracted screen time into money and databases of human profiles, i.e. money, again. This is something new to find myself equally possible in an image world as well as a physical one. In an attempt to answer the question “What happened now,” I’m moving between the premonition of a much-anticipated collapse, or a bit more optimistic angle, of an interregnum. The movement of the eye, the work of the shutter will keep on, shifting the focus from stability to relativity. Shutter’s work, as movements to instigate the re-awakening of the past experience of human agency against world destruction, to let imagination continue its work.
Artistic research: Lida Griaznova
Engineering, technical research and development: Alexander Bochkov
Ոչ հիմա. գողոն պատկերներն ու Գալիլեոյի կոտրված ոսպնյակը
2024—ընթացիկ նախագիծ
Ներկան հասկանալու և ապագան կանխատեսելու համար անհրաժեշտ հեռավորությունը երբեք «ճիշտ» ժամանակ չի ունենում։ Դումսքրոլինգի տնտեսությունը, մեդիա հարթակները, լուրերն ու տարատեսակ փորձագետները հետևողականորեն էկրանի ուշադրությունը փոխակերպում են կորզված ժամանակի, այնուհետև՝ գումարի և մարդկանց անձնական հաշիվների տվյալահեն շտեմարանների, այսինքն՝ կրկին գումարի։ Ինձ համար նոր փորձառություն է՝ ինձ նույնքան իրական և գործուն զգալ թե՛ պատկերների աշխարհում, թե՛ ֆիզիկական իրականության մեջ։ Փորձելով պատասխանել «հիմա ի՞նչ տեղի ունեցավ» հարցին՝ շարժվում եմ երկար սպասված փլուզման կանխազգացման և, մի փոքր ավելի լավատեսական դիտանկյունից, միջիշխանության գաղափարի միջև։ Աչքի շարժումն ու փականի աշխատանքը շարունակվում են՝ ուշադրությունը տեղափոխելով կայունությունից հարաբերականություն։ Փականի աշխատանքը, որպես շարժում, ուղղված է մարդկային գործակալության անցյալ փորձառության վերարթնացմանը՝ ընդդեմ աշխարհի կործանման, որպեսզի երևակայությունը շարունակի իր աշխատանքը։
CAA—60 out now on Bandcamp
ceph, Purpurniy Dyadya, Sergei Komarov & Lidiia Griaznova, Nikita Bugaev, the concept horse
@acephallus@prpl_uncl@depth_dept@relational_self@begriffspferd
Phenomenon and Paradoxes of Information Transmission 6’06”
The need to receive, process, and send signals as quickly and efficiently as possible opened a distinct field of knowledge in telecommunication technologies.
It opened new ways to apply both scientific and artistic imagination—through the inventions themselves (telephony, signal processing, radio transmission, and speech synthesis), through the contexts in which they were used (number stations, ham radio, vocoders, and various speech-coding systems), and through the people and institutions who worked with them. The sonic landscape was formed by work of all fascinated and driven by this way to work with sound — from The BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Bell Labs, NHK Japan, to the 1970s “sound-phreak” culture—particularly Evan Doorbell. To trace way through the lines of circuitry to create sounds out of the chaos, as pointed out Justin Patrick Moore, a radio enthusiast and writer.
Within a sound installation commissioned by CYLAND MediaArtLab, artists contributed their own sonic environments as reflections on the evolving trajectory of sound and music-making. Each artist was provided with a set of autonomous, battery-powered speaker modules designed and built in the CYLAND workshop. Each channel functions as a stand-alone piece and simultaneously as part of a collective multi-channel work. One could listen to a single artist’s group of speakers or combine them with others, rearranging the units in space and shaping new sound combinations in real time. This constantly changing acoustic environment blended with the Botanical Garden’s regular sounds, revealing shifting relationships between signal, interference, and spatial perception.
text: Lidiia Griaznova
curated by Sergei Komarov and Lidiia Griaznova
recording: Sergei Komarov and Sergei Dmitriev
mastering, lathe cut: Sergei Dmitriev
Voice of the Friend Sound piece in two parts, excerpt, 2025
Voice, video footage: Yaniya Mikhalina Sound: Sergei Komarov @depth_dept Field recordings, video edit, sound design & mix: Lidiia Griaznova Mastering: Sergey Dmitriev @prpl_uncl
When it comes to friendship, there’s a lot one could say — but the main thing is not to let anything slip, not to say too much. What matters most must remain unspoken between two friends: something lived together, sometimes at a distance, sometimes with long pauses between meaningful conversations — or any conversations at all.
This work wasn’t conceived in advance. It is a fragment of our communication that took place during a particularly difficult time for me.
What you hear are two voice messages Yaniya recorded for me in response to a video preview of my book project that I had sent her. The book is composed of print tests and scraps, fragments of texts written for and used in my other projects. It was created to fulfill a need — not for a job, but for something meaningful and entirely my own. Curiously, the book hasn’t been shown anywhere yet, and ahead of it came this piece, instigated by it.
I named it after François Fédier’s essay Voix de l’ami (Voice of the Friend) — a text I always struggle to summarize or recount due to its complexity. But let me note what struck me most in light of this work: the readiness to hear someone close to you, and the readiness to speak. ...den Freund bei sich tragen / to carry the friend near oneself, at one’s side... ...The voice of the friend — once it reaches your ear — cannot be mistaken for any other.
Hearkening!
My sound piece is now on view at @sec_yvn
All are welcome — just message @sec_yvn to listen it.
Voice of the Friend Sound piece in two parts, 2025
Thank you:
Voice: Yaniya Mikhalina Sound: @depth_dept Mastering: @prpl_uncl
Field recordings, sound design & mix — Lidiia Griaznova
Sound Enthusiastic Community for hosting.
The quote on the first slide is from the Russian edition of François Fédier’s book, translated by Olga Sedakova.
CYFEST Midpoint: Phenomenon and Paradoxes of Information Transmission
⇢ @ecoepicenter / @yerevanbotanicalgarden
Opening: October 18, 6:00 PM
Live: @n___e_v@prpl_uncl
Exhibition: October 19 – November 2
A multi-channel sound installation dedicated to the engineers, experimenters, and artists who turned communication into composition.
Inspired by telephony, radio, and early speech synthesis, the work explores how signals become sound—and how interference turns into meaning.
Participating artists
ceph @acephallus
Purpurniy Dyadya @prpl_uncl
Sergei Komarov & Lidiia Griaznova @depth_dept@relational_self
Nikita Bugaev @n___e_v
the concept horse @begriffspferd
Visitors are invited to move, combine, and reconfigure the autonomous speakers—creating new constellations of sound in real time.
Sergei Komarov & Lidiia Griaznova
Time Signals
sound installation, 2023
Supported by CYLAND MediaArtLab
The time signals have a strict utilitarian purpose and are used as a reference to determine the time of day. Not only humans, but machines too, are sensitive to them. Coordinated Universal Time — an imposed time — splits space into time zones and divides days into slots for labor and leisure. A seemingly ordered and planned timing of the day bends the stream of life. It establishes hours through a hierarchy of choices we make throughout the day.
In this project, utilitarian, purposeful time-counting is displaced by a subjective logic. It is guided by one’s personal sense of time — where what feels too long or too short is a matter of perception, shaped by what is happening and when. It appears as a temporally staged game, existing only for the sake of play, without any clear purpose. Whatever slice of time is noticed will be neither a beginning nor an end. They are all part of a broader continuity, where the sound from this installation is just one of many fragments — existing like pulsars, like strangers’ shouts from nowhere — a barely recognizable fragment of someone’s voice, snatched from the surrounding noise.
—
ph: @morskaya_kapusta
𝗡𝗘𝗪 𝗥𝗘𝗟𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗘: CAA—59 TUULA NÄRHINEN
The CYLAND Audio Archive is back with its next drop: CAA—59 Tuula Närhinen is now available on bandcamp.
Tuula Närhinen
Drop Tracer (excerpt) 06’31”
This sound excerpt is from the installation Drop Tracer. To make this record, Tuula placed a DIY contact microphone under a 35mm glass slide. The glass slides were sensitized with soot and exposed to rain. Falling on the soot-coated glass surface, the raindrops left visible traces even after the water had evaporated. A contact microphone caught the impact of the collision and transduced its vibrations to the audio input of a mini tape camcorder.
The work draws from a method devised by the meteorologist Vincent J. Schaefer. When a drop of rain hits the glass, air trapped under the droplet lifts tiny particles of soot that precipitate as clearly discernible explosion patterns on the surface of the slide.
Tuula Närhinen is a visual artist and scholar. Re-adapting methods and instruments derived from natural sciences, Närhinen facilitates the generation of inscriptions by harnessing natural phenomena for processes of image making. Along with displaying the conception of the tracings and recordings, her installations showcase the DIY instruments implicated. She lives and works in Helsinki, Finland.
text by Tuula Närhinen
curated by @depth_dept and @relational_self
mastering, lathe cut by @prpl_uncl
link in bio
