Leonardo Digital Reviews

Luce: Optical Theatre of Sergei Zorin

Yu Linnik
Maks Press, Moscow, 2002
24 pp.

Reviewed by Bulat Galeyev
Kazan State Technical University
Academy of Sciences of Tatarstan

galeyev@prometey.kcn.ru

We are grateful to R. Faizrakhmanova for this translation [ed.]

It is known that 'Luce' is translated from the Italian word, 'light.' Just this designation was given to the light part in the score of the symphonic composition, 'Prometheus,' by the great Russian composer Skriabin. No wonder this word is used more than once as a symbol, a sign of new art. For example, the Dutch group 'Luce' (in Amsterdam, guided by H. Austb?) is successfully engaged in light performances of Skriabin's music for over 10 years. No wonder that Yuri Linnik, author of this book under review, profited too by this word-symbol for the title of his new biographic book, because Sergei Zorin, the hero of this book, is the light artist-more exactly, the artist of light (so to say, 'artist of luce').

But I should note right away that Zorin is not the immediate, direct adherent of Skriabin's light-music ideas, where the simple tints of pure color are used in light part. Zorin is not a supporter of Skriabin light-music even if these colors will be organized in abstract images, lines, and figures. As it is described in this book, Zorin generally refused, on principle, to accept the notion of 'color-music,' 'light-music,' or 'music of light,' etc. He, like his Ukrainian colleague and teacher Pravduk, at first, used the compound heavy term, 'dynamic music light painting,' as though he accentuated, on the one hand, the role of the visual pictorial component. On the other, Zorin, like Pravduk, implied by this name that they had not lost touch with traditional painting. They hinted at well-known nature images and outer world images, even if they are stylized. But if, by chance, they had abstract images, they were a result of limiting stylization of these pictorial, figurative images. I could compare, therefore, these light artists' compositions with program pictorial compositions in music itself. No wonder that just such a program of music is used most frequently by these Ukrainian light artists who seldom address to purely instrumental music.

The author of this book dwells at length on Zorin's practices today; these main visual techniques are slide projectors with, for example, the 'fade-in,' with flowing mutual substitution of slide projections to the music. They are animated delicately and tactfully by superposition of pointless light projections. One would think that the simplest techniques are used there, but Zorin considers it important on principle that aesthetics of 'optic theatre' he declared is wholly built on 'continual' (continuous) picture projection. Zorin holds that only this permits one to obtain a meditation, resembling dream influence permitting to incarnate ideas of 'fine worlds' that is excluded for 'interrupted,' 'discrete' projections (for example, cinema, laser drawings), the more if the projected images are created by means of raster or digital methods (i.e. television, computer animation).

In this connection Zorin, the author of the book, retraces in every detail the forming principles of diverse light effects of nature itself that he considers the main teacher of artist Zorin, such as the rainbow, break of shades, break of water, magic of daybreaks and sunsets, etc. He remembers the symbolism regarding light formed in the art of Ancient Egypt, in antiquity, in the Middle Ages, and in Russian art and philosophy. But Linniks's book and Zorin's compositions have something in common with the art of the East and India more often. Just like famous Russian artists N. and S. Rerikh, Zorin's idols, he lived many years. Apropos, the 'Optic theatre' of Zorin is functioning just in Moscow international center of Rerikhs.

It is very difficult to retell light pictorial compositions of Zorin, flowing and transforming one in another. It is difficult, too, to retell the reviewed book of Linnik on Zorin, because Linnik himself is a professional poet-besides that, he is a doctor of Philosophy. And the text of his book is full of poetical revelations. And what is more, Linnik finishes the book with poems dedicated to his hero, talented light artist Zorin who had devoted more than 40 years, all his life, for the great art of light.