December 18 — ABSINTHE
Yuri Andrukhovych (Ukraine) + Кarbido (Poland)

visualization: ArtPole/vj-group CUBE/Hermetic Garage/MixAllOffTunes/Ela Birylo

Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine (Kyiv Conservatory), 1/3 Arkhitektora Horodets'koho Str.

“Absinthe” is the third part of musical and poetic trilogy. Its authors and performers are Polish band Кarbido and Ukrainian writer Yuri Andrukhovych. The previous parts of the trilogy are albums “Samogon” and “Cynamon”. These works, both albums and their scenic embodiment on the stages of Ukraine and Poland, have become a noticeable and widely discussed event of the contemporary independent culture.

The idea of “Absinthe” is to create an intermedia lyrical and musical program (poet’s voice, texts and music) intensified and complemented by visualization (video art in different forms and manifestations). The program is based on Yuri Andrukhovych novel “Perverzion” (seven re-editions in Ukraine, three re-editions in Poland, separate editions in Russia, Finland, Serbia, USA, Germany). The novel is focused on a mysterious story of poet and traveler Stanislav Perfetsky. In March 1993 he appears in Venice, the city of ghosts, and then, having experienced a number of fantastic adventures and vehement love, disappears forever from “the apparent surface of the world”. The novel itself presents a pretty chimerical mixture (intimate confession, magic realism, thriller, Gothicism, satire, grotesque). And by accounts of readers and critics it is a perfect example of postmodern aesthetics in its eastern European manifestation.

The “Absinthe” creators think of it as of an original sound track to the film based on “Perverzion” and done by an unknown director (Perfetsky himself?) but that has never been brought into play. All that we have is fragments, oddments, episodes, extracts, hints on former cohesiveness, separate songs, suites, melodeclaimed mono- and dialogues, instrumental versions of forgotten operas and cantatas; multilinguism and polysemanticity both in direct and figurative meaning.

The title “Absinthe” is certainly metaphorical. It is a peculiar paraphrase concerning a faved drink of all decadents. Refracting through “the texts of Perfetsky” it carries the news about Absinthial country (Ukraine after Chernobyl disaster) and its painful absence (interaction between “absinthe” and “absent”) in present-day Europe. Co-operation of artists from Poland and Ukraine in the project become an active denial of this absence itself. The final aim of the project is to create a multilevel compound and breathtaking action made of words, intonations, music, light, video.

Press about “Absinthe”: газета "День", УНІАН, 5 Канал, M Joy.

Video