Chthonian Portfolio
The Mainline Group actively opposes any kind of military action, genocide, or invasion into sovereign states, especially the imperialist war the Russian Government has unleashed on Ukraine. We stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine and those protesting around the world.
︎No to war. Нет войне. Ні війні.
Superpolar Continuity, 2024
video
Chthonian profile:
Western: ♏︎ [Scorpio]
Slavic: Swan
Chinese:木龙[Wood Dragon]
Superpolar continuity is a story of a very special type of travelling — immigrating. Specifically (physically and mentally) from the East (Shanghai) to the extreme West (Saõ Paulo) as told from a first person perspective.
Based on the real life of The Mainline Group member Lena Kilina, the video pictures constant movement of scenery — from colourful celebrations to mourning nature, travelling by train, bike, foot, and sea. Assembled from purely personal footage, the video defies the polished travelling documentary aesthetics, which are never earnest depictions of the process. Instead, the video aims to redefine the genre of immigration stories as a video-postcard, showing discovering new land is never a clean process. From grief to celebration, from loss to acquisition, Superpolar Continuity depicts the dualities of life on wheels.
The soundtrack for this video 西方-东方 was composed by Meta Golova band and debuted live on NTS Radio and Gallery Emalin (London) on July 9th 2024.
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Based on the real life of The Mainline Group member Lena Kilina, the video pictures constant movement of scenery — from colourful celebrations to mourning nature, travelling by train, bike, foot, and sea. Assembled from purely personal footage, the video defies the polished travelling documentary aesthetics, which are never earnest depictions of the process. Instead, the video aims to redefine the genre of immigration stories as a video-postcard, showing discovering new land is never a clean process. From grief to celebration, from loss to acquisition, Superpolar Continuity depicts the dualities of life on wheels.
The soundtrack for this video 西方-东方 was composed by Meta Golova band and debuted live on NTS Radio and Gallery Emalin (London) on July 9th 2024.
Leave!, 2023
video
Chthonian profile:
Western: ♑︎ [Capricorn]
Slavic: Crow
Chinese:癸卯年[Water Rabbit]
Leave! is a short film on the loss of place, nationality, masters, and purpose. Written and directed during the time of war, Leave! depicts a character, battling their loneliness and demons, unaware that they are a demon of their own.
The text is written in Russian — the language of dissidents and refugees, and simultaneously — perpetrators and predators. The landscape is Parque Minhocão and its dwellings — a place of a well known urban revolution in Saõ Paulo, where the citizens got tired of their personal space being invaded by traffic and reclaimed a whole piece of highway. It has turned into a pedestrian area, unprecedented for Saõ Paulo.
The lyrics of Leave! invoke discourse of power figures, deities, and commands being doubted and debated. Challenging the culture of submission to circumstance, the audio welcomes the listener to grieve a free world unsuccumbed to the will of others.
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The text is written in Russian — the language of dissidents and refugees, and simultaneously — perpetrators and predators. The landscape is Parque Minhocão and its dwellings — a place of a well known urban revolution in Saõ Paulo, where the citizens got tired of their personal space being invaded by traffic and reclaimed a whole piece of highway. It has turned into a pedestrian area, unprecedented for Saõ Paulo.
The lyrics of Leave! invoke discourse of power figures, deities, and commands being doubted and debated. Challenging the culture of submission to circumstance, the audio welcomes the listener to grieve a free world unsuccumbed to the will of others.
NEUROTIC CITY, 2022
audio-visual experiment
Chthonian profile:
Western: ♈︎ [Virgo]
Slavic: Svarog
Chinese:虎水[Water Tiger]
The worlds of anthropology, art and, architecture are well aware of the revolutionary Situationist exercises of Guy Debord (1958), which invited the citizens to explore the terrain psycho-geographically and resist the mental economy of pre-decided urban movement as much as possible. The idea of “dérive” — letting go of the reasons for walking and being drawn by the affordances of urban terrain — is a centrepiece of the philosophy. However, dérive was designed for the first-world people, unbothered by threats of policing, crime and suspicion, living in the clean and safe first-world cities.
What would happen if we attempt to practice dérive in the cities no less big than Paris of Berlin, yet much less safe, white, and privileged? In this video art we invite you to a Situationist follow-along, a journey through urban and political fears, exercises and stories of 2 citizens of Sao Paulo and Moscow. These 2 drifts in one of the world’s most policed city and in one of the world’s most criminal city will merge into a social and urban mirror, reflecting the true progress of our societies.
Shot and performed by the Mainline Group (Lena Kilina and Sofya Chibisguleva), sound design by Yuri Bruscky.
What would happen if we attempt to practice dérive in the cities no less big than Paris of Berlin, yet much less safe, white, and privileged? In this video art we invite you to a Situationist follow-along, a journey through urban and political fears, exercises and stories of 2 citizens of Sao Paulo and Moscow. These 2 drifts in one of the world’s most policed city and in one of the world’s most criminal city will merge into a social and urban mirror, reflecting the true progress of our societies.
Shot and performed by the Mainline Group (Lena Kilina and Sofya Chibisguleva), sound design by Yuri Bruscky.
VERSATILE
MATERIAL, 2020
Three-channel audio & installation
[concrete, plastic plant bases, assorted seeds and pulses].
Chthonian profile:
Western: ♍︎ [Virgo]
Slavic: Maya
Chinese: 庚子[Metal Rat]
Versatile Material is a sound-sculptural installation studying the phenomenon of sonic erosion by the Mainline Group and AUTOTURK [Adam Synikin & Lena Kilina].
Versatile Material was on show at Frequencies exhibition at Khodynka Gallery (Moscow) from 1 Sep to 29 Oct 2020.
CHTHONIAN
REHAB, 2020
single-channel video, 7m 51s
Chthonian profile:
Western: ♊︎ [Gemini]
Slavic: Veles
Chinese: 庚子[Metal Rat]
The Mainline Group invites you to stick your shovels into the space between the waves of the pandemic and embark on a supermythical trip to analyse the post-COVID condition of distance.
Chthonian Rehab is an anthology of grief, tension and internationalism during the pandemic, following the digital dialogue of the Mainline Group members – Lena and Sofya.
"Today I had a dream I was at Lena's place in Sao Paulo. It had ceilings like courtyards of St Pete's and the rooms reminded me of the warehouses in Seven Sisters. The living room was colour green... with no dimensions.
In the middle of it was an altar-like sculpture made of wax and coated in gold. It was humid and hot in Brazil, so the centrepiece lady streamed down on the floor, mixing with wax and revealing the grief which was nothing but vicid."
"Today I had a dream I was at Lena's place in Sao Paulo. It had ceilings like courtyards of St Pete's and the rooms reminded me of the warehouses in Seven Sisters. The living room was colour green... with no dimensions.
In the middle of it was an altar-like sculpture made of wax and coated in gold. It was humid and hot in Brazil, so the centrepiece lady streamed down on the floor, mixing with wax and revealing the grief which was nothing but vicid."
