In July 2019, Olga Kisseleva delivered a performance, Infinity, at the 5th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art in Satka.
The performance took place at Magnezit Group’s depleted open pit, with mine employees taking part. The project embodies our interest in how technologies interact with all areas of human life, an interest that underlies Magnezit Group’s development philosophy. To address all the different dimensions of this interaction, we combined three perspectives in our story about the project: those of the Artist, the Engineer and the Researcher.
A huge "infinity sign" was created at the Beryozovsky open pit using red satin. During the day, dancing young ladies — employees from Magnezit Group — laid out pieces of the silky fabric, flowing in the wind across huge folds of rock. The result was a breathtaking spectacle — hundreds of meters of red fabric, laid out to form a mathematical sign. The art performance was filmed both on the ground and from a bird’s-eye view, and the documented materials were presented in September 2019 at one of the two main sites of the Biennial — the Urals Optical and Mechanical Plant in Ekaterinburg.
Olga
Kisseleva
Contemporary artist, professor at the Sorbonne University, Head of the Art and Science Lab. Author of Infinity performance.
through the Artist’s eyes
location
— On the one hand, I really wanted to take part in the Ural Industrial Biennial dedicated to immortality. On the other, I’d been long entertaining an idea for a project that I had never had time for. And one fine morning I woke up and saw a message from the Biennial commissioner Alisa Prudnikova with a photo of the Satka open pit, saying: "Olya, would you like to do a performance here?" I didn’t even ask what and where, I just immediately responded: "Yes, I would!" It was an incredibly beautiful place and exactly what I had been looking for. And it was only when we started to agree on dates, thought things out and were halfway through organizing the event... only then did I decide to look at the map to see where Satka was located.
Olga
Kisseleva
Satka
July 22, 2019, Satka, Beryozovsky open pit
people
The performance in the Urals open pit (given the challenging weather conditions and a short timeframe) was made possible by the help and support of Magnezit Group employees and Satka residents.
Site preparation:
Chief Engineer of Melnichno-Palenikhinsky open pit
Konstantin Pakhorukov
bulldozer operator at Melnichno-Palenikhinsky open pit
Alexander Ryndin
Head of Production Area at Melnichno-Palenikhinsky open pit
Vyacheslav Mustafin
Realization:
Satka site employees
Oksana Shinkareva
Ksenia Fedotova
Alina Dubovikova
Marina Maksyutova
Natalia Markevich
Olga Burasova
Maria Dodina
Photo:
Denis Shakirov
Olga Kisseleva
Videographer:
Anton Elfilter
Aerial photography:
Anton Fadeyev
Coordination:
Head of External Communications
Marina Chirkova
through the Engineer’s eyes
open pit
— I often invite clients and partners to Satka. And the first thing I do is I walk them to our observation deck. When they first see our open pits, they just freeze. They can’t believe that all of this is man-made. That people are even capable of doing something like this. And it amazes me too, every time, and I am proud that several generations of Magnezit employees have created the most genuine, man-made work of art.
Dmitry
Borzov
Development Director of Magnezit Group. Graduated from St. Petersburg State Institute of Technology, holds a PhD in engineering.
Magnezit Group’s open pits
through the Artist’s eyes
time
— I was busy preparing for other projects, but I found a free week somewhere between South Africa and Brazil. So I decided to go to the Urals for that week. At first, I thought seven days would be plenty of time and I could do a lot of things but then I suddenly found out that it takes about the same time to get from Paris to Satka as it does to fly from Paris to New Zealand — 24 hours. And that’s assuming that all the flights are on schedule, all the connections happen on time, no one is late or gets stuck in traffic jams (and there are indeed traffic jams in the Urals). I was surprised to learn that the distance between the airport and the city is twice the length of Belgium! That is, you need to cross Belgium twice by car in your mind just to get from the airport to Satka. I came to realize that it would take me this whole week just to try to comprehend this new space-time continuum and learn to live in it. And then I simply cancelled my Brazil trip and went to Satka. Because I already understood that this was the place where I wanted to repeat my Infinity.
Olga
Kisseleva
The Satka performance is a reinterpreted version of Olga Kisseleva’s 2012 performance at the Louvre-Lens museum in Lens, a mining company town with suspended industrial operations in the northern part of France. Olga was invited to take part in the exhibition dedicated to the opening of the new state-of-the-art museum building, consisting of several modules built in a coal pit. From above, the group of museum buildings seems like an ideogram written into the landscape, and its form resembles the mathematical sign of infinity. The Lens performance was designed to publicly recreate the infinity sign in the museum gardens and emphasize its role as an institution that preserves art, helps it to overcome time and attain infinite immortality.
The Satka performance is a reinterpreted version of Olga Kisseleva’s 2012 performance at the Louvre-Lens museum in Lens, a mining company town with suspended industrial operations in the northern part of France. Olga was invited to take part in the exhibition dedicated to the opening of the new state-of-the-art museum building, consisting of several modules built in a coal pit. From above, the group of museum buildings seems like an ideogram written into the landscape, and its form resembles the mathematical sign of infinity. The Lens performance was designed to publicly recreate the infinity sign in the museum gardens and emphasize its role as an institution that preserves art, helps it to overcome time and attain infinite immortality.
The mathematical symbol of infinity in its modern form was introduced by the English mathematician John Wallis, who first used it in his Tract on Conic Sections published in 1655. Wallis provided no explanations for the choice in his book. Some believe it could have been inspired by the way 1,000 is written using Roman numerals (originally it looked like CIƆ or CƆ) or by omega (ω), the last letter of the Greek alphabet.
through the Artist’s eyes
the Louvre-Lens
— These are, of course, two completely different infinities. The French version was a project about the role of a cultural institution. In that version, the infinity sign was arranged around a long building covered almost entirely with reflective glass. We performed in perfect conditions and the tranquil environment of an enormous flat space, with a Japanese garden that felt like absolute Zen on the grass. A carefully mowed lawn, with ballerinas slowly carrying the fabric, glasses of champagne and exquisite snacks being offered to participants and guests. Everything was harmonious and leisurely, kept deliberately light. The ultimate goal was to emphasize and give shape to this harmony and lightness. Whereas in Satka... well, it was a struggle — a mesmerizing and fascinating struggle. I came to understand that things can be no other way in the Urals. So many amazing things can be created there, precisely because you have to match this primitive, primordial power and beauty.
through the Researcher’s eyes
The Urals
— Industriality, on the one hand, is a fundamental aspect for this Urals region that grew out of a company town, but on the other hand, it is also a global phenomenon: the whole world went through a period of industrialization, which modernized production and transformed the socio-political consciousness. In 2009, we gave a lot of thought to what we could offer the world by placing another pin on the global biennial map. Our new biennial had to have its own identity, and we needed to define it. That is why its name includes not only "Ural" but also "industrial," and for us this became not just another "cool feature" but a kind of ideology for the whole project. And although this decision was made rather intuitively at the time, ten years later it seems remarkably accurate. It enabled the project to fill its own niche in the global context by defining its status for years to come. At that time, we really managed to come up with an important idea regarding the current Russian zeitgeist, and to find amazing partners and like-minded people from industrial companies all over the country.
Alisa Prudnikova
Commissioner of the Ural Industrial Biennial, Head of Strategic Projects at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.
The Ural Industrial Biennial is the largest international contemporary art project in Russia. Since 2010, with the Ministry of Culture’s support, the Biennial has been researching industriality as a legacy and established practice in the Urals and all of Russia. During this time, over 300 artists from 70 countries took part in the Biennial, and dozens of local and regional plants hosted its exhibitions. In its ten years in existence, the Biennial has become not only the most experimental project, but also the most famous contemporary art project from Russia in the world.
The Ural Industrial Biennial is the largest international contemporary art project in Russia. Since 2010, with the Ministry of Culture’s support, the Biennial has been researching industriality as a legacy and established practice in the Urals and all of Russia. During this time, over 300 artists from 70 countries took part in the Biennial, and dozens of local and regional plants hosted its exhibitions. In its ten years in existence, the Biennial has become not only the most experimental project, but also the most famous contemporary art project from Russia in the world.
through the Artist’s eyes
bulldozer
— From up top, the open pit may look like a kind of even surface. In fact, it is strewn with lumps of rock two meters high. We needed to figure out some way to dance on those rocks and come up with the choreography to "draw" the infinity sign with our dancing. I had absolutely no idea how to depict infinity among meter-high boulders. I even thought that we would probably fail entirely. But the people living in these parts, they think differently. Ural locals told me, "You need to get a bulldozer; it can draw whatever you want." It was an idea that would have never occurred to a girl from Moscow or Paris. So we got a bulldozer and drove it over there. A bulldozer-driving artist, so to speak. A drone was flying above, showing the way for the bulldozer to follow. All this still sounds to me like some sort of an improbable story. However, the guys from Magnezit had this totally calm and constructive attitude to everything that was happening: a bulldozer — fine, infinity — no problem; we’ll just sit down, think for a while, figure it out and do it. And they did. Infinity came along somehow in spite of the surroundings, in contrast to this heavy-duty industrial machine, but at the same time with its help. We witnessed industry making a kind of about-face, from merely exploiting nature to cooperating with it. And nature didn’t just submit but agreed to help us instead. The lay of the land, the terraces shaped by the beds of the rock, became the pattern for this performance. It was no longer an act of making nature complete with the performance but of communicating with it — and this dialogue was needed to create a new infinity through joint efforts, instead of accentuating the existing one.
Olga
Kisseleva
Magnesite mineral. A history
through the Engineer’s eyes
boundaries
— As I’m a person with an engineering mindset, the project in the Beryozovsky open pit made me think about how the improvement of mining and production is also about infinity. The year 1901, when we started mining magnesite, and the present day are two different eras, in terms of what we produce and how we produce it. For example, what was once regarded as material unfit for production can nowadays be used for further processing, thanks to better technologies. Today we reprocess scraps that used to be stored as waste. We are now already developing the technology that will allow us to reprocess today’s waste, which is basically waste products of waste. In a few years we’ll already have this kind of technology, and what used to be waste will become a new source of raw material. We are growing closer to a stage when the word "waste" won’t exist altogether, technically. In this respect, the industrial process is pretty much as infinite as humanity. It knows no boundaries, no limits on its possibilities. These boundaries are being continuously pushed.
Dmitry
Borzov
Magnesite mineral. Characteristics
through the Artist’s eyes
fabric
— I needed red calico to design the infinity sign. I had already used this kind of fabric before, and I know how to deal with it. We measured the open pit and calculated, using a special formula, that we would need about two kilometers of the fabric. Red calico is plain, coarse cotton; back in the day, it could be found in all the "red corner" propaganda rooms across the Soviet Union. However, it is apparently no longer popular now, considering that we were unable to find two kilometers of red calico anywhere in the Urals. So we had nothing to "draw" with. Eventually, half a day before the performance, I got a call asking me, "Is it alright if we get you silk instead?" I said yes. It wasn’t real silk, naturally, it was satin — fine cotton with special weave structure, denser and more complex than calico. In addition, it is treated with acid, so one side of it is sheen, the other matte. When we started handling this artificial silk, it proved to be an absolutely fantastic material.
Due to an accidental design fault, we received much more than we expected. Once we saw this fabric and realized its advantages, we started playing with it, using its sheen and matte sides alternately. The textile flowed and shimmered, reflecting the blue sky and our actresses. Its original red hue was changing from pale pink to purple to orange to yellow — depending on how the light struck the surface. Even the weather was our helper, taking part in the performance. The forecast was calling for 10 degrees Celsius and rain (which is odd for July!) But as soon as we started negotiating with nature, everything changed. Despite all the forecasts, the sky was a bright blue, with huge billows and multicolored rain clouds moving across it. It was hot and the wind was blowing. If we had an opportunity to choose the weather, we would have asked for precisely this.
Due to an accidental design fault, we received much more than we expected. Once we saw this fabric and realized its advantages, we started playing with it, using its sheen and matte sides alternately. The textile flowed and shimmered, reflecting the blue sky and our actresses. Its original red hue was changing from pale pink to purple to orange to yellow — depending on how the light struck the surface. Even the weather was our helper, taking part in the performance. The forecast was calling for 10 degrees Celsius and rain (which is odd for July!) But as soon as we started negotiating with nature, everything changed. Despite all the forecasts, the sky was a bright blue, with huge billows and multicolored rain clouds moving across it. It was hot and the wind was blowing. If we had an opportunity to choose the weather, we would have asked for precisely this.
Olga
Kisseleva
through the Researcher’s eyes
support
— An artist helps an industry to see itself from the outside. And probably the best thing an industry can do for an artist in response is to "see" him or her. Magnezit Group is one of the key partners of the Biennial, which has been thoughtfully supporting our project for many years. It all began with the construction of a permanent industrial residence for the art community in Satka, which was a unique format for Russia. Later on, we cooperated on implementing the NEMOSKVA Project, when the Magnezit team hosted the participants of the international curatorial school.
In 2020, during this difficult year of quarantine, we were able to publish a full-size print run of the Biennial catalogue thanks to the Group’s support. Our Biennial as well as the relationship we have been able to build with the Group are, of course, a really valuable example of mutual support between art and industry.
In 2020, during this difficult year of quarantine, we were able to publish a full-size print run of the Biennial catalogue thanks to the Group’s support. Our Biennial as well as the relationship we have been able to build with the Group are, of course, a really valuable example of mutual support between art and industry.
Alisa
Prudnikova
The Biennial catalogue dust jacket
through the Engineer’s eyes
life
— Magnezit Group is currently investing immense funds and effort into implementing environmentally-friendly policies. Open pits, everything we used to create to mine ore, were regarded as a necessary evil, a violation of nature that couldn’t be helped. But we realize now that things can be done in ways that help nature to recover.
There are different techniques of land restoration. Everything that cannot (yet!) be harnessed as raw material can be deposited in an old closed mine and covered with a layer of soil where trees can be planted. After a while, no one would even guess there used to be an open pit in this place. Another possible solution is to make a stockpile, which will be indistinguishable from a small mountain. An open pit can be flooded and filled with the purest water from underground springs to create a lake where fish will appear over time.
When raw materials are mined, it is not possible to avoid environmental impact altogether, but modern technology allows us to minimize the damage.
There are different techniques of land restoration. Everything that cannot (yet!) be harnessed as raw material can be deposited in an old closed mine and covered with a layer of soil where trees can be planted. After a while, no one would even guess there used to be an open pit in this place. Another possible solution is to make a stockpile, which will be indistinguishable from a small mountain. An open pit can be flooded and filled with the purest water from underground springs to create a lake where fish will appear over time.
When raw materials are mined, it is not possible to avoid environmental impact altogether, but modern technology allows us to minimize the damage.
Dmitry
Borzov
through the Artist’s eyes
nature
— I have a feeling that nature was certainly destructed in Satka at some point, and you can still see the signs of this destruction, but the reverse process is currently under way there. The common aspiration and will of the people who live and work there, everything they are doing, is not about taming nature but rather about consciously creating something new in cooperation with it. This is totally different from before. It makes no sense to go backwards: what is done cannot be undone. But we can build something new. It might even prove to be better than before.
Olga
Kisseleva
through the Engineer’s eyes
progress
— The volume of our known magnesite reserves is among the largest in the world. These reserves have all been explored, calculated and certified according to the international standards, and we know that our supply of high-quality raw material will last for decades or even centuries. But however big these reserves are, they are finite, and so by mining them we are cutting off the legs of the chair we are sitting on, in a manner of speaking. Is it possible to change the situation somehow? Definitely yes.
Think back to what a metallurgical plant with its open-hearth furnaces used to look like. In the 1970s and 80s, the rate of refractory consumption was up to 70 kilograms per metric ton of steel. In other words, to produce a metric ton of steel, about 70 kilograms of refractory products was required. With today’s state-of-the-art converter production technology, 10 kilograms of refractories per metric ton suffices.
Moreover, while developing today’s new magnesite-based production technologies, we actively work to enable our customers to produce more steel, concrete or glass while consuming less refractories — and we are indeed successful.
Going forward, we will develop processes to reduce magnesite consumption even more. This will essentially increase our reserves of raw material, by using less and doing so more responsibly. Progress is infinite.
Think back to what a metallurgical plant with its open-hearth furnaces used to look like. In the 1970s and 80s, the rate of refractory consumption was up to 70 kilograms per metric ton of steel. In other words, to produce a metric ton of steel, about 70 kilograms of refractory products was required. With today’s state-of-the-art converter production technology, 10 kilograms of refractories per metric ton suffices.
Moreover, while developing today’s new magnesite-based production technologies, we actively work to enable our customers to produce more steel, concrete or glass while consuming less refractories — and we are indeed successful.
Going forward, we will develop processes to reduce magnesite consumption even more. This will essentially increase our reserves of raw material, by using less and doing so more responsibly. Progress is infinite.
Dmitry
Borzov
through the Artist’s eyes
interaction
— I believe that an artist’s role, at all times as well as nowadays, is not to embellish but to comprehend what is happening in the world, alongside with researchers and scientists. It is obvious that industry is currently at the forefront, determining our lifestyle and what happens in our life. It would be odd to ignore it or go against it. All the more so because an artist, when doing something important or serious for themselves, often needs support from industry. Such an artist might, for instance, need a bulldozer to draw an infinity sign...
It’s therefore wonderful if art and industry have mutual understanding and are able to interact with one another. It benefits both.
It’s therefore wonderful if art and industry have mutual understanding and are able to interact with one another. It benefits both.
Olga
Kisseleva
After the performance
through the Researcher’s eyes
immortality
— Infinity, like immortality, is one of the basic questions for humanity, very poetic and incomprehensible, like a mountain left unconquered. I believe we have brought up a very important issue at the 5th Biennial: if we ever find a way to overcome death, will we manage to overcome immortality?
Alisa
Prudnikova
The Ural Biennial is continuously conceptualizing industriality, each time considering it from a different perspective.
The 5th Ural Biennial contemplates what is left behind from manufacturing and artistic processes? Products? Results? Traces?
Thinking about what is left behind after we are gone — if left at all — the Biennial team chose immortality as a theme. This undoubtedly broad topic should not be taken literally but rather viewed as a general line of thinking. With immortality in mind, we can stop having literal discussions about products and the intrinsically replicable nature of the industrial process and start looking into more universal phenomena and broader concepts.
...
In contemplating immortality, we participate in the infinite dialogue about time and space, about a person’s place in any emerging or newly designed reality, and his or her right to have a certain attitude to this reality. Immortality is a good reason to talk about cultural memory and ways of keeping the human identity intact along the winding path of time.
from the 5th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art manifesto
through the Artist’s eyes
continuity
— If you take an imaginary pin and pierce the planet through while standing in the Beryozovsky open pit, the pin is likely to come out on the other side of the globe in Brazil, in the state of Minas Gerais, which means "General Mines" in Portuguese. It’s kind of like... the Brazilian Urals. They are so much alike that they even have a national dish called beef stroganoff, which they proudly treated me to, although it contains chunks of palm stems instead of potatoes. Minas Gerais has the same kind of open pits as Satka, which have been producing magnesite for a few centuries. I have this idea of taking Infinity global — and stage the performance in the Urals and in Minas Gerais simultaneously, depicting two branches of infinity at the same time, on the opposite sides of the globe. Infinity never ends. Once you have started dealing with it, you just keep on doing it forever.
Olga
Kisseleva
locationopen pittimethe Louvre-LensThe Uralsbulldozerboundariesfabricsupportlifenatureprogressinteractionimmortalitycontinuity
Olga
Kisseleva
Kisseleva
The Artist
Contemporary artist, professor at the Sorbonne University, Head of the Art and Science Lab. Author of Infinity performance.
Born in St. Petersburg in 1965, she lives in Paris. She applies various scientific and technological innovations in her works, creating large art installations and interactive exhibitions. She has been working with major Silicon Valley firms since the early 1990’s, including Apple, Yahoo and Hewlett Packard, and has worked at the University of California’s labs. A member of the Higher Institute of Visual Arts at the Centre Pompidou since 1995.
Olga Kisseleva has participated in international exhibitions and biennials in Venice, Istanbul, Berlin, Lyon, and Moscow. Her works are held in the collections of major museums of the world: the Paris Museum of Modern Art, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Centre Pompidou, the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki, the Art Institute of Chicago, MoMA in New York, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the National Center for Contemporary Art in Moscow, and the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.
Satka
A city in the Southern Ural, thought to have been founded in 1758 when Baron Sergey Stroganov’s Troitse-Satkinsky ironworks was put into operation. When deposits of the "blue stone" (magnesite, the raw material for refractory manufacturing) were discovered in 1898 on the Karagay and Volchya mountains, the industrial settlement’s fate was sealed. In 1901, the first Russian refractory plant, Magnezit, was built in Satka. In 1905, the plant’s products won a gold medal at Liège International, an industrial world expo in Liège, Belgium. Today, Magnezit Group is one of the leaders in the global refractory industry and provides comprehensive refractory solutions and services around the world.