The Guide to Hell
2019, Sound design
Credits:
The project was commissioned by the indipendent theatre Mesto (the Place) in Yekaterinburg, Russia.
Production team:
Andrey Chugunov - sound design
Alexander Vakhov - director
Roman Vlasov - videographer
Anastasia and Evgeniy Lukuta - media artists, authors of video projections
Vladislav Balin - technical director
Dmitry Bezuglov, Vitaly Cherepanov - performers
Olga Komleva - content curator, producer, theatre manager
Description:
The independent theatre Mesto presents Ekaterinburg residents with a new experimental format - a performance-sound-installation based on the comic book "Guide to Hell" by the British author Jack Teagle.
The comic book is about two hapless teenagers. They inadvertently sell their beloved grandmother's soul to the Devil, and all would be well, but their mother forbids them to play the console until they get their grandmother back.

The main part of the action took place in a 45-minute audio-performance format for a 4-channel sound system. The audience went into a prepared darkened room and were given sleeping masks over their eyes. I wanted to break the notion that hell is always hot, I wanted to make it cold and empty.

Samples were recorded from found objects, dissected and homemade musical instruments, percussion instruments, all complete with synthesizers and processing.
All samples for the performance were recorded together with Vladislav Balin, Arkady Friedman and Fedyan Fendos.