People who come to Zhytomyr can leave different memories or imprints. Oleksiy Shatalov, composer, sound designer and producer of several vinyl releases released in Germany and England, left behind a musical story about a man who found himself between two galaxies. This is the task he set himself as a participant in the project, which is implemented within the «Sound Laboratory» on the «Measurer». Experiments with musical form and sound are what Oleksiy has been working on for many years, but this is the first time he has had to work in a residency. It was all the more interesting to learn about his thoughts and impressions
«I learned about the residence and the Measurer from Facebook… This is the first residence in my life, so I had no hopes. By no means did I know how this should happen, so everything is fine for me. Of course, a lot of new experiences, there are surprises, but it’s a great adventure, besides incredibly interesting. I knew absolutely nothing about the «Measurer» (ed. – plant «Electric Measurer»), and this became a topic for research: I needed to learn what kind of company it is, what is its history, how the company was formed and in what condition it was and is now… First of all, the impressive scale – a large area. You understand that in its heyday it was a central enterprise for the whole city. Flax mill, «Electric measurer» – the two largest companies in Zhytomyr, in my opinion. It was interesting to look at all this, to see the imprint of time. Elsewhere, there is even a reclamation of buildings by nature – this is always a topic of interest to me. I just love to be in such places, to look at them»
«I am a sentimental, sensitive person – this is one of the key factors that motivate creativity. Something inside you is burning, screaming and begging outside… I don’t know how universal it is in a creative environment, but I’m not against it at all. Sensuality, emotionality, sentimentality – these are important factors in order to express the important. Otherwise, the process is more like making a product than creativity. I believe that the most interesting and valuable thing in any artist is individuality, a unique point of view, a position that is unique»
«I found my first permanent job in IT when I was 17 years old. It was the year 2000. Almost all the technologies I worked with then are not relevant now. That knowledge is a burden that no longer makes sense. Time ruthlessly erased it all, that’s how time works… Once I was able to start without any education and special skills, without making any investments. Now it helps not to pick your nose and understand that creativity is an endless process. This means that I will always be on the move: what I learned before will no longer be relevant, and I always have to look around and try to keep up with the times»
«I very much agree with the statement that life is 10% of events and 90% of how you react to them. In fact, the significant moments that influenced my formation as a person are small flashes in a film that has been going on for 40 years, so it is impossible to describe a movie that lasts so long for one second or even an hour… I used to create my own meanings and situations. Of course, by no means did this happen consciously – only now am I beginning to realize that I started creating as a child, many years before I had a sequencer or other device. music, organization of sounds and their recording). At first I did simple experiments with reels and records… Creativity is a very strong educator of personality. First, I have to be a generator of ideas. I still have to be their embodiment, and I also have to be their validator. And after all that, I still have to have the confidence to present my ideas to a wide range»
«I exist in the universe, and creativity is a universe that exists within me. Career is the connection between these two universes, more precisely, how I present myself to the world, how I show my universe. Therefore, social skills are incredibly important for any activity in the public field. It’s just an axiom that doesn’t need proof. However, if I have such a deep psychological approach to the formation of my own creative personality, which is based on not very good contact with society, then there is obviously a certain collision, so to speak… Lectures within the project – an unusual experience for me. It may seem that I am a successful person. It does not. The difficulties of existence are the same as those of ordinary citizens»
«Successful life is valued by others, and life satisfaction is valued by me. That is, success is how my existence is reflected in the eyes of the world, how luxurious my life is. Pleasure is what must go from within. I lacked, and sometimes still lack, social skills, but I want to enjoy life. So I have to find a balance in which I am not ashamed to look into the eyes of the guy I see in the mirror. This is the most important thing. Can I give my mom some jewelry for her birthday now? Most likely not. However, from an emotional point of view, I am more satisfied now than when I had a good income and did not enjoy life, although then I was more successful. There must be a balance between «successful» and «satisfied»
«A lot of people around the world are interested in music, but statistically only one or two percent earn a living. This leads to the idea that in order to achieve professional success you need to adapt to the market. Earlier, more than 10 years ago, I was absolutely convinced that a good product sells itself. But you grow up and understand that this is nonsense: only the product that the consumer is interested in sells itself. 10,000 tracks were released today, the same number will be released tomorrow – and so every day. What will make my project special? Let me invest in it, like everyone else, soul, heart, experience, mind, etc., but the listener will just pass by, because I did not declare myself. Yes, I’m not shouting, «This is the best thing you’ll ever hear. Press quickly – listen». But more often than not, people who do so and find an audience listen to them. There is nothing special, fantastic in this – this is how human nature works»
«The level of education only shows that we can learn even more. One of the most interesting things I realized when I learned the first ten ways to write music is that there are 10 million other ways to write music… It’s incredible. And I’m talking about how endless the world that opens up when you keep learning. I do a job that I never fully master. None of us will ever listen to all the music, never study all the theory and aspects. My best work will always be the one I have to write in the future. I think it is very useful when the concept of development is laid down from the beginning. I myself did not come to this at once – I understood with age. A colleague-teacher suggested me a very important thesis, which inspired me incredibly: «By teaching, I learn as much as I teach». This is because you begin to look at the methods you use through the prism of another mind. I don’t think it’s necessary to talk about specific production methods or approaches to music theory, or just limited to best practices. My goal is to lay a solid foundation and see what another mind will build on it. And such a «building» is the greatest pleasure from teaching»
«One filmmaker I admire said, «Creativity is not your pet. This is a child who grows up and begins to talk to us with the help of those things that were not specifically taught to her». In music, too, it happens when someone finds other meanings that I did not put in my track. It’s incredibly interesting»
«I was not an excellent student at school: I had a stable «five» in English, computer science and physical education – I played football, played for the school team. And all other assessments are mostly «threes». If everyone is the same, life will be boring. The most interesting thing is that we are all completely different. Each of us is a unique feature film that lasts as long as the allotted time»
«In the last few decades, humanity as a whole has been actively looking inward: we are beginning to realize ourselves on a completely different level. The model of education that I found was formed during the Industrial Revolution – it was necessary to prepare workers for factories. Now the world is different. For example, I would like to teach financial literacy and teach to work with taxes in high school now. I wish my biology teacher wasn’t a hypocrite and didn’t shy away from the sex education section. Because these are serious things, the lack of understanding of which can break someone’s life. This is what happens: «You read it yourself, and then figure out where to put it to make it work». With experience you understand how big the mistakes made by the school and our parents as well… Now we live in the age of information, but it leads to the fact that we live in the age of selfishness. Who are you? Who are you as a person? Who do you want to be? What position will you hold at the company? Will you open your own business? The answers to these questions form a fundamentally different approach to personal development, but it is still in no way taken into account in primary and secondary school. I know this as a teacher, whether I’m working one-on-one or with a group of people. I believe that they are all capable until proven otherwise… This is also reflected in how we perceive other people: when we are less experienced, we use more the «presumption of a good person». With age and a degree of cynicism, we first demand proof that this person is good. I must have seen a lot of bad things. This is a paradigm»
«The success of my students can be assessed by various criteria. Are there any graduates who have become stars? No. Do I have graduates who have completed a certain course of study and were able to realize themselves in music? Yes. This is the biggest success for me. Not how they fit into the external context, but whether they find balance with their internal. I am very happy to think that I am helping people to find something better within themselves and to manifest it. Children are not brought to me, conscious people who dream of something come to me. So I try to take care of the students, believing that in some way they trust me with their dreams. For me, the main criterion for success is what they wrote or did, not how many likes they got for it»
«For me, the main thing is personal communication, which is why I do not want to scale my own methodology. Maybe it would be much more effective and would definitely be more profitable, but I think that in this way I reject the most important thing in the artist – his personality. I know that when all my attention is focused on one student, he will receive 100% of my love, care, my knowledge, and people feel it, even when I am defeated. All the same, I helped the person to discover something in himself, to learn something new about himself. They then come back and say, «You see, even though no work has been written, you are one of the best exposition I’ve ever had in my life»
«Musical form is a language that is evolving. A century ago, music was elitist. Of course, a certain musical culture also existed in the proletariat, and a lot of interesting music came out of it, such as jazz. Not from the monarchy, not from the elite of society – this is how those who were not a part of secular life saw this musical form. In a way, I am the bearer of such a culture. The conservatory scares me – for the conservatory I am a profanation. «How is it that you don’t know that modulation, that sharpness, that flatness, because of that minor, bypassing that fifth?» No, I don’t know that much. Sometimes I just feel it. And technology allows me to write music. Sorry! The popularity of music is wide, there is often less interest in the musical form itself. If we were left with only the conservatory, it could exhaust itself… The fundamentals of music may change in the next hundred years. A good example of this was the experimental composer Harry Partch, who invented his own scale, in which one octave consists of 43 notes, not 12. This sounds very different from the form used by all. I do not rule out the possibility that something similar will happen to music in the future. I think that a more simplified attitude to the musical form adjusts me to additional meanings and allows me to be filled with these additional meanings»
«Now there are special vibrating backpacks that help to feel the base, like in a club. Maybe in the future, if we somehow decode the radiation of the brain, the music will be immediately directed to my consciousness, mind. And this, for example, will solve the problem of imperfect acoustic environments: you will not need to invest in a room where everything would sound exactly. Why not? But I want to get to your mind, to make you feel and imagine something today. I know that with the help of one musical form I will not be able to convey the whole palette of reflections, thoughts, feelings of a person stuck between two galaxies (laughs)… I want to be limited only by imagination and ability. I know that in reality there can be no other restrictions. Everything else is about the resource and its own limits»
«I was very amused when I saw a comment under one photo on Facebook: «I can’t imagine Zhytomyr without the Measurer». I will not have the courage to give any advice other than «feel and create», to be in harmony with my own feelings and emotions, to let the world see and hear them. This is culture. This is to be its bearer»
