THE MOBILE SEANCE in Kassel

The French word séance is interpreted in many European languages as a spiritualistic meeting, a session with a medium. The Mobile Seance is a technical modernization of a Medieval medium as well as a technocratic anti–utopia – a sarcastic declaration of a stolen transcendental. The contemporary medium is not a mystic and not a shaman. He is an ordinary average statistical man – a consumer, a teletubbie, a zombie,  an executor,  a wage worker. But he is also a charlatan. Selling a transcendental mystery for 1 euro per three minutes he is fulfilling a contemporary liberal barter.

The main railway station Kassel, Germany. August 2007.


THE MOBILE SEANCE in Kassel from Andrey Ustinov on Vimeo.

The structure of the performance is quite simple. The Medium is riding a modified wheelchair offering a three minutes “mobile séance” for 1 euro. A slim mobile TV screen is fixed on his chest and coin chute between his legs. As far as 1 euro is being put into the coin chute the introduction instruction manual appears on the screen, offering people to use a TV remote control for choosing any TV channel. Medium is transmitting sounds to the audience he is receiving from TV set into his headphones. As far as three minutes are over the machine is asking to put another coin.

Medium is having his round–the–world trip, repeating the same performance in different cities on his way.

In order to realize the performance technically a special machine Ustinov Mobile was constructed.

What is Ustinov Mobile? 

Ustinov Mobile is a universal manual engine.

Ustinov Mobile is a multifunctional device

First of all it is a carrier for all the equipment needed for the mobile session.

auto-accumulator

megaphone

loud–hailer

alternator

coin selector

mobile TV set

Second, it is a mobile “chair” for fulfilling a mobile spiritual session.

The history of the project

In December, 2001 the project Medium was created. It was performed in Saint Petersburg Gallery Polygon of Cultural Center Pushkinskaya 10 in collaboration with Yury Popov. Artists and enthusiasts were invited to the gallery and were offered to reject their personal message and to become mediums of a TV reality.

Then the project was performed in shops of video techniques serving a purpose of a pseudo–advertisement of the techniques they sell. In April, 2001 the project was performed in the store The Golden Key in Saint Petersburg. In September, 2002 it was realized in the store “M–Video” in Moscow with the support of the National Center for Contemporary Art.

In order to lead the project out of the form of a local activism the Mobile Séeance was created at the end of 2006.

The Mobile Seance is a transnational campaign, an international urban Guerrilla.

The Mobile Seance intrudes into the social space as nonsense. The appearance of the phenomenon is arising and initiating a number of vivid, critical and acute questions. The task is not to commit an act of terrorism, but a mental explosion and mental awakening.

As a mechanical transmitter of a TV stream the Mobile Medium can deliver information in any languages. Mobile Medium is a contemporary apostle who is capable of speaking any languages of the world. Wandering from city to city, from country to country Mobile Medium prophesies the last of the Last Testaments: the absence of any good news.

The performance was first realized in August, 2007 in the gallery STELLWERK in Kassel during the World Exhibition of Contemporary Art DOCUMENTA 12. Then it made a tour trough such cities and countries as Cologn and Kemniz (Germany), Madrid (Spain), Lyon (France), Moscow (Russia).

The Mobile Seance was realized due to support by students and research assistants of the High School of Arts in Kassel.