Aerowaves 2014: Recollective (Russia), Repose

Two Russians balance on precarious perceptual stilettos. Flash review from Aerowaves 2014 Spring Forward festival.


Repose is anything but restful: it messes with your head, your sight, your senses. Olga Tsvetkova is barefoot, Alissa Šnaider in perilously high heels. Both are framed within a tilted trapezoid, and their torsos constantly list away from their legs. Centres of gravity look skewed, angles are “off”.

Not just angles: sounds which seem to come from microphone pick-ups – the chug of Tsvetkova’s breath, the snaredrum spike of Šnaider’s heel, the screechy-chalk torture of her scraping shoe – turn out to be recorded effects. As sound splits off from action the pair uncouple too, moving from side by side to front and back, the asymmetries of sound and sight dislocating our senses like some audiovisual Ames Room.

It’s a powerfully unsettling piece that leaves your brain teetering on precarious perceptual stilettos.