Maksims Shentelevs | Latvia

Maksim Shentelev is an architect and multimedia artist from Latvia who works in field recording under name my-ym. His activity is focused on perceptional nuances of informative environment. Field recording, collage and musique concrete are the main genres. Scope borders are set for research of audio visual sensual field, especially for analysis of phantasmal dimensional structures. He is also the co-founder of Audiot, a Riga based net label that develops and publishes the sharpest audio design from Latvia and neighbouring countries.

http://www.audiot.lv/

Project: Svalka. Nodar
Category: Sound Art
Period: September 2006
Event: "Nodar Pushing the Medium #2" Symposium

„Svalka” is a site based multimedia project of Maksim Shentelev aka my-ym which usualy is involved in collaboration with different artists as in „Svalka Mooste” with Ivars Smits. Janis Bikis and Kirils Lomunovs in „audums” (Pushing the Medium #1), etc.

The strategy of „Svalka” is gathering audio visual material in the field, exclusively on location and shaping of particular conception of the project during the workshop.

The only preconception of the work in Nodar during PTM#2 was to create a sound composition which structure and mutual relations of sound objects and details are determined by analyses of spatial and environmental structures of Nodar. Network of foothpaths, roads, shapes and proportions of buildings, objects of landscape, character of the nature and textures of surfaces would become presets for the shape of sound composition (intervals, pitch and gain levels, rhythms, repetitions, contrasts and analogies, relation of the whole and detail, etc). Sound composition was based on field recordigs and sound objects recorded and collected on location.

The abstract aim of the particular project was to ”paint” the landscape of Nodar in sound based not on emotional impressions of artist but on measurements of proportions and material characteristics of environment.

The presentation of the project resulted in a laptop performance accompanied by graphic materiales made during the symposium.

Maksis' comments on the symposium:

It was a real pleasure to spend time in Nodar thanks to the warm team of Binaural and the unique atmosphere of Nodar. I hope I’ll have a chance to come some day again.

In the context of different places I visited in recent years, Nodar occupies a special niche, for its simultaneous locative isolation and social openness. There was no chance to stay reserved or secluded. The key of the symposium was openness and communication. And that is the basic source of multimedia.

Collaboration and interchange of experience, opinions and ideas was all over in the air as a part of a charming landscape. In my personal research and collaborative work with John Grzinich and Antonio Della Marina I’ve experienced the transformative simplicity of the media flow in the context of clear and open environment on both social and spatial levels.

I believe that each artist brought out a seed of charm from Nodar.

Project's video (in collaboration with John Grzinich and Antonio Della Marina):

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