DMITRIY MAYBORODA & ALEKSANDR SARNA
"DIGGERS' DAY"
15 minutes, 10/09/2001atStrochitsy village

by Denis Romanovski
Pantomimic imitation of digging holes and the mechanical work of a painter. Both gestures are united by the enthusiasm for physical exertion and progress through labour characteristic to USSR propaganda films of the industrialisation era. This parallel is reiterated by the constant sound of Sviridov's rumba from the film "Time To Move Forwards!" The muscles of ideology bury art - whether it be state ideology or some kind of cultural ideology.

"Diggers' Day" ("Time To Move Backwards!") is an event for two participants, one of which actively imitates the movements of a man digging a hole, while the other pretends to draw him at a virtual easel. The performance lasts around 15 minutes to the sound of the looped introduction to G. Sviridov's musical composition "Time To Move Forwards!". Initially, the participants act independently of one another (one digs while the other paints), then the second starts interfering in the actions of the first, telling him how he should dig. A conflict arises between them, resulting in the digger killing the artist and burying him in the freshly-dug hole, thus turning it into a grave. This action plunges the participants and audience into an imagination space bounded by the trajectories of movement and expression of the 'actors'. The meaning of what is happening is constructed from the energy and rhythm of the musical accompaniment." - ALEKSANDR SARNA

Seeing this, May Di said, "What else can a wise man do apart from imitate imitations!?"
To this, the venerable Alsar replied, "Tao* is the deed of a man of complete wisdom, and therefore he does nothing."
May Di said, "Ying and Yang are intertwined in a wise man's deed, the main thing is not to get lost!"
To this, the venerable Alsar replied, "A wise man demonstrates discord by using harmony. In so doing, he strips the Te naked."
May Di said, "If there are two wise men, is not the wisest the one who looks at the sky?"
To this, the venerable Alsar replied, "The wiser man looks at the earth, for he can see it from above, as can the sky. But a man of complete wisdom looks nowhere and shows nothing."
- MAY DI
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* In this case, it is important to consider not just the common definition of this word ("the way"), but also its meaning of ontological emptiness, which serves as the formal reason for all things. Dmitriy Mayboroda