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

Olga
Kisseleva

Satka

people

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

Dmitry
Borzov

Development Director of Magnezit Group. Graduated from St. Petersburg State Institute of Technology, holds a PhD in engineering.

through the Artist’s eyes

time

Olga
Kisseleva

through the Artist’s eyes

the Louvre-Lens

through the Researcher’s eyes

The Urals

Alisa Prudnikova

Commissioner of the Ural Industrial Biennial, Head of Strategic Projects at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.

through the Artist’s eyes

bulldozer

Olga
Kisseleva

through the Engineer’s eyes

boundaries

Dmitry
Borzov

through the Artist’s eyes

fabric

Olga
Kisseleva

through the Researcher’s eyes

support

Alisa
Prudnikova

The Biennial catalogue dust jacket

through the Engineer’s eyes

life

Dmitry
Borzov

through the Artist’s eyes

nature

Olga
Kisseleva

through the Engineer’s eyes

progress

Dmitry
Borzov

through the Artist’s eyes

interaction

Olga
Kisseleva

through the Researcher’s eyes

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

Olga
Kisseleva

locationopen pittimethe Louvre-LensThe Uralsbulldozerboundariesfabricsupportlifenatureprogressinteractionimmortalitycontinuity