Projects

‘The Eternal Values’ is a unique audio-visual project specially created for the Ruarts Foundation by sound artists Gleb Glonti and Mikhail Myasoedov. Timed to coincide with the opening of the new venue on Trubnikovsky Lane and the first exhibition of works from the foundation’s collection, ‘The Eternal Values’ was arranged as a project to correspond with features of the interior space and based on an analysis of data from the artworks in this collection.

The idea originates from an attempt to convey the interpenetration of the eternal and modern that exists in any true work of art. According to the authors’ concept their work is a diptych, one part being immersed in the other. 
‘Ephemeral’, the smaller part, relates to the transience of our life, “a short flash of vanity”, according to the authors. This is immersed in eternity, timelessness – the larger part of the project, which the artists called ‘Timeless’.

Everything the spectator perceives in both parts is obtained directly from data on artworks in the Ruarts Foundation collection. The images created by this analysis follow one after the other, as a linear progression through all the items in the collection.

The colour of the resulting shape is based on the colours of the original work. Monochrome spheres correspond to black-and-white photos. The shape is determined by decomposing the works into pixels, and dictated by the brightness of each component. This process can be imagined as an ‘explosion’, when each dot of the original artwork flies away from the centre, as far as the bright pixel corresponding to it. Texts appearing on top of the figure are the name and date of creation of the work, the author’s name, the number of copies, the medium used, and a brief biography of the artist. Playing time depends on the age at which the author created that particular artwork.  

The musical part of the work involves a choir, an orchestra and electronics. This music is also completely data-driven. As a result of the decomposition of each work in the collection into 3 colour planes (RGB) and their further sonification, we obtain a characteristic sound for the extended electronic component. The title of the work and the name of the author (their Unicode characters and length) affect the rhythmic pattern of the musical composition.

In this way, spectators obtain all the necessary information about the foundation’s collection in a striking and up-to-date audio-visual form, while moving from one work to the next.

The project is complemented by a total sound installation.