Spectacular Experiments on the Great Atomic Bombreflector

June 20–22, 2024
Presented by La MaMa and CultureHub

Press
Culturebot, e-flux

 

The First New York Spectacular Experiments is the Planetary Ignition of an unprecedented global project to develop the Great Atomic Bombreflector. This colossal Device will transform the destructive energies of Atomic Inhumanity into the Genius forces of global upliftment. Theater is a key engine of this Device, so the Ignition will take place at the legendary La MaMa Experimental Theater Club with its power of 60 years of bold experiments by outstanding global artists.

These immersive performative Experiments will feature 3,000 square feet of aluminium foil unique Kazakh instruments, collective practices of agitating everyone's Inner Genius, and Kazakh songs and inter-world texts performed by Guide-Performer Alexandra Morozova. The spectators will take part in playful sci-fi experiments that deal with the Power of Genions and Universal Composition and are based on the New Genius Theory – a revolutionary approach to life and art invented by artist, writer, and the Genius of the Absolute Interplanetary Category Sergey Kalmykov (1891-1967). The results of the Experiments will be used to create the Great Atomic Bombreflector!

Spectacular Experiments on The Great Atomic Bombreflector
is an immersive performative event by ORTA Collective, a transdisciplinary artistic group from Kazakhstan. It is developed within Experiments in Digital Storytelling.


CULTUREHUB TEAM
Sangmin Chae – Creative Technologist
DeAndra Anthony – Technical Director
Mattie Barber-Bockelman – Producing Director
Billy Clark – Performer, Artistic Director
Blair Johnson – Development Associate

ORTA COLLECTIVE
Alexandra Morozova – Guide/Performer
Sabina Kuangaliyeva – Lead Genions Researcher, Performer/Experimenter, Hardware Designer
Alexandr Bakanov – Set Designer of the Experiments, Device Designer
Darya Jumelya – Cinematic and Photographic Dimension of Genius Capturer
Rustem Begenov – Director of the Experiments
Alina Alimzhanova – Researcher
Zhanna Ee – Almaty Planetary Center
Zhaniya Alimzhanova – London Planetary Center
Marat Raiymkulov – Bishkek Planetary Center


More about the project: From 1949 through 1989, Kazakhstan was subjected to more than 500 inhumane testings of nuclear and thermonuclear bombs that ruined lives of one and a half million of its people and caused irreparable damage to its earth and nature. This is the most nuclear-bombarded place on earth, and an unimaginable amount of dark, infernal energy of grief, horror, dehumanization has accumulated here. How can this energy be transformed so that it does not lead to disastrous wars, killings, and destruction, but gives people the power to create and transform the world?

ORTA Collective, a transdisciplinary artistic group from Kazakhstan, decided to create a device that could do this transformation. An understanding that it is possible to create such a device originated from the New Genius philosophy, which ORTA has been developing since 2016. This science-fiction theory, like the idea of the Atomic Bombreflector, is founded upon the life and artistic contributions of Sergey Kalmykov (1891-1967), a Kazakhstani artist, writer, inventor, and Genius of the Absolute Interplanetary Category. The New Genius considers genius as a practice anyone can perform as opposed to the traditional conception that attributes it to a rare, innate quality of exceptional individuals.

Having conducted a number of experiments, including the very first prototype of the “First Atomic Bombreflector” in Moscow in 2021, as well as a series of Spectacular Experiments in the LAI-PI-CHU-PLEE-LAPA Center for New Genius, which ORTA deployed in the first historical pavilion of Kazakhstan at the Venice Biennale in 2022 the collective decided to launch a large Planetary Program to purposefully create the world's first device called the Great Atomic Bombreflector or simply the Bombreflector. Just as the first atomic bomb was once created, the time has come to create the first Atomic Bombreflector!

The goal of the Experiments is complete immersion in the universe of the New Genius and excitation of genius of each spectator who will become a real experimenter. The trials are designed to investigate ways to generate and store genius energy for use in full-scale field testing of the Bombreflector on August 29, 2024 in Kazakhstan steppe.

The Spectacular Experiments and the Grand Opening of the New York Planetary Centre of the Great Atomic Bombreflector is supported by Caravan of Knowledge and Goethe-Institute Kazakhstan as a part of the First Phase of the Great Atomic Bombreflector Planetary Program.

PROJECTS