Manifesto, the emblematic form of statements of modern culture, is connected with sound and music in number of ways. The new, 160-pages long issue of Glissando contains a collection of texts investigating those relations from various perspectives. Devoted primarily to the history of the connections between manifestos and the audial in Central and Eastern Europe, the issue has been divided into four sections, tied together by the introductory essay by Antoni Michnik.
Each of the sections opens with a translation of text of Russian or Soviet avant-garde (Aleksei Kruchenykh, Nichevoki, Nikolai Kulbin). The language communication poetry section gathers essays that emphasize the search for new artistic language – within dadaists (Tomasz Misiak) or members of (Polish) Totart (Paweł Gawlik, Xawery Stańczyk). They’re accompanied by great translatory-typographic achievement – the translation of the essay Sound Plasma by Horatiu Radulescu. The past present future section – almost entirely in English – contains translation of the essay by Andrzej Chłopecki (with introduction by Jan Topolski) devoted to the ‘generation of Stalowa Wola’ lacking any kind of manifesto and two contemporary manifestos written primarily in Russian (RĀMANS aka Roman Shiroukhov, St Res), that are put in the broader context by the essay written by Lidia Ader. The section entitled city state society deals with different kinds of organization of lives of communities through the sound – from theories of modern cities (Paweł Krzaczkowski), through the thought or activities of different composers (Agnieszka Grzybowska on Ruydhyar, Daniel Muzyczuk about Avraamov and Neuhaus) and artistic projects that cross the border between politics and aesthetics (Natalia Skoczylas about NSK and Laibach) to the manifestos of the design for computer games (Mateusz Felczak). Finally, the individual freedom body section begins with the freedom of improvised music (Doris Kösterke, Ewa Cichoń), then turns to enhance the abilities of human body (Beniamin Głuszek on Lucier’s Music for solo peerformer) and pangender overcoming its limitations (Klaudia Rachubińska on P-Orridge), to end with a freedom from aestheticly-political regulations of the contemporary (Radosław Sirko).
The issue has been supplemented with the interview with Ewa Justka, two relations from Darmstadt Summer Courses and the second instalment of the ‘Prawykon’ column, this time about Aleksandra Gryka’s W.ALTER’s(Z).
