Few dare to traverse the boundaries with the audacity of Broken Composers. This multimedia duo, renowned for their bold interplay of spectacle, embodies a mission to redefine the relationship between creator and spectator. Their latest installation, Solid Revolver, encapsulates this vision in a mesmerizing blend of architecture, performance, and an ever-shifting tableau of light and shadow.

Since their emergence at the 2017 Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Broken Composers have been distinctive for their use of DIY instruments and experimental sound designs. Solid Revolver poses a thought-provoking question: In our ever-changing world, will you maintain your individuality or blend into the collective? Renowned for combining stunning visual elements with complex audio, Broken Composers continue to challenge our perceptions.

Despite their busy schedule, we managed to connect with Kirill and Vitaliy, the visionary minds behind Broken Composers. They shared insights into their otherworldly project, Solid Revolver, which seems as if it were conceived in another galaxy.

photo by @brokencomposers

In your latest installation, Solid Revolver, you create a unique experience where architecture, performance, and music converge within a 20-meter cylinder, surrounded by a rotating cloud of light. Can you explain the main idea behind this installation?

We aim to create a technological analogue to some natural extremes. It’s like a disaster that you can survive, get an adrenaline rush from, and have plenty to ponder about! We are looking for a way to reproduce the admiration and sense of our own insignificance that one encounters, for example, when seeing a particularly powerful storm on the ocean shore or lightning breaking through the clouds under the wing of an airplane in which you are sitting. Such an element contains mesmerizing beauty, inhuman aesthetics. We consider it our main task to get closer to it.

Your installations often transform audiences into active participants rather than passive observers. With Solid Revolver placing viewers within a ‘rotating cloud of light’, how do you believe this physical immersion impacts their experience and interpretation of the artwork?

Experiencing is what happens in the here and now, and interpreting is what happens later when it’s over. In order for the body to release the hormones of delight, sometimes you just need to be in the center of something big and strange. That’s why we always recommend walking around inside our objects. Zoning out, getting lost in space, wandering in haze, being pierced by sound waves, blinded by bright flashes, and returning to reality – all the best awaits the bravest. Everyone who views the installation from the outside at a great distance would lose the very point of it.

Your work often asks the audience to choose between preserving their individuality or merging with a collective experience. What inspired you to explore this theme?

Humans are social creatures; in reality, they never had any choice! It always feels dangerous to step out, depriving oneself of safety. If they do not try somehow, they are worth nothing. We are weak; all we can do is try to find gaps in the wall of what is called the norm. We see that society and various influencers are constantly changing the list of permissible things. It turns out that our work is done from the position of cowards trying to cure themselves of this cowardice and gain freedom.

Every visitor experiences Solid Revolver differently. Have any audience reactions surprised you or influenced your perspective on your own work?

It’s weird that, compared to predictions, only a few people dared themselves to enter the installation. The majority just stood outside, and those who did kept walking in circles for a long time. The experiment with this installation will continue; you’ll see how it changes, and we will definitely make it bigger and more powerful!

photo by @brokencomposers

Your new single is described as an extension of the Solid Revolver experience. How do you transpose the emotions and themes of a physical installation into a purely audio form?

It happens naturally. Architecture, light, music, and even costumes are created simultaneously, feeding off each other and merging into a unified whole. There’s nothing new about this; any film, play, or video game is also not just isolated pieces but a complex, multifaceted creation. Projects like ours belong to a younger genre that hasn’t yet been given a simple term, so they are called “installations” and described with often unclear compound words like “multimedia,” “phygital,” or “audiovisual.” The installation stood for only a few days and then disappeared, but it left behind digital traces – videos, photos, and of course, music. Therefore, the track on streaming platforms is the only way to experience the same emotions that people felt when they saw the installation and the performance within it.

In an era where digital interaction often replaces physical experiences, do you think installations like Solid Revolver offer a form of resistance or commentary on this shift?

We don’t resist digital reality; we welcome it. And the next obvious step is some hybrid experience, an intersection of real and virtual worlds.

What’s the most unconventional instrument or sound you’ve incorporated into your music?

Occasionally at our performances, we try to grind large and heavy nuts inside an ancient hand mill. This sound through the microphone goes to the computer, and what happens next is layers and layers of digital transformations making the noise sound groovy and gently melodic.

Who or what are your biggest artistic influences, and how have they shaped your work?

It is science, astrophysics, technologies and progress, and also the incredible power of natural elements: tsunamis, lightning, tornadoes, earthquakes, meteorites, radiation, etc. We believe these are endless themes for creating new installations and music.

What new themes or concepts are you excited to explore in your future projects?

Sooner or later we’ll get to fire! It’s going to be hot! I can’t say anything more specific.

What’s the most unexpected thing that happened during the making of Solid Revolver?

We promised to do a spontaneous performance for the organizers during which Kirill had to climb to a height of 8 meters without safety gear. We say “had to” because sometimes there’s a feeling that we have no choice, and there you are at the very top with a flashlight, hoping.

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*This interview was made possible by Quite Great PR