INTERSTICE

Event

02.05.2019

8pm

Rencontre des Inclassables

Ésam Caen/Cherbourg
Court Caffarelli
14000 Caen

Matthieu Martin projects his works La valse de Vladimir and Le Detroit Russe and musician Peter Theremin composes the score on a theremin.*
Matthieu Martin directed his two films (6 mn 25 and 11 mn 30) in 2018 as part of a research project (Autopia) on the utopian city of Avtozavod in Russia and Vladimir Shukhov’s avant-garde architecture.
The project began in 2015 with a residency at the National Centre for Contemporary Art in Nizhny
Novgorod (NCCA). Matthieu Martin explored the little-known collaboration between the Soviet government and the American Ford Company. Russian Detroit is located in the heart of the utopian city of Avtozavod in 1929 when the Soviet government hired the Ford Company to create the « first socialist city in the world » and the largest automobile factory in Europe. Built with the help of architect Albert Kahn, the factory was inspired by the Ford Rouge Factory in Detroit, USA. This contemplative journey to the « Soviet Detroit » allows us to see the vitality of today’s city. Then, following the original master plan, the film invites us to observe the hidden traces of the American presence in the former socialist dream. And Vladimir’s Waltz was filmed on the banks of the Oka where V. Shukhov built the only hyperbolic transmission tower in the world. Filmed with a UAV camera, the film reveals a new perspective on this avant-garde architecture of 1927. The Shukov tower was designed manually and the structure seems to move in space and has been designed by modern software.

Matthieu Martin (born in 1986) studied at ésam Caen/Cherbourg and Sheridan College of Arts in Toronto, and participated in the Salon de Montrouge and the Biennale of contemporary art of Ekaterinbourg. He had his first solo exhibition in the galleries ALB (Paris), Aperto (Saint-Petersburg) and Störk (Rouen). He published Cover Up with a text by Denys Riout. Since 2014, his work has been shown at the Pavillon de l’Arsenal (Paris), Cuxhavener Kunstverein (Cuxhaven), FRAC Normandie (Caen), Espace d’Art Contemporain Camille Lambert (Juvisy/Orge), Syndicat Potentiel (Strasbourg), Centre National d’Art Contemporain NCCA (Nijni Novgorod), Aperto Raum (Berlin), Musée des Beaux-arts (Rouen), Kunsthalle (Wilhemshafen).
In 2018, Matthieu Martin joined the doctoral program through practice (RADIAN) which brings together ésam Caen/Cherbourg, Esadhar Rouen/Le Havre and ENSA Normandie.

Peter Theremin (born in 1991 in Moscow) is a composer, performer of the theremin, an electronic musical instrument. He is the great-grandson of Leon Theremin. He organizes the festival of theremin culture Thereminology, he is the creator of the first Russian-language portal about theremin Theremin Times and works with theremin in genres: classical, contemporary improvised music. Head of Russian Theremin School, the author of a series of lectures on the history of electromusic and on the history of the theremin. He is the author of the course Theremin for 24 hours.

*The theremin is the first contactless instrument in the world invented by the Soviet physicist and musician Leon Theremin in 1920. This is done by moving your hands near two metal antennas, on the right for variations and on the left for volume.