Aleksandra Khakhan

MetaMoscow: A Promenade Performance
Inspired by Pavel Pepperstein’s story "Antenna for Communicating with the Dead"
The performance MetaMoscow invites the audience on an immersive journey through the city’s hidden layers, where the past and present intertwine. Created in collaboration with students from the Moscow School of Music, this promenade performance transforms urban space into a living narrative, revealing unseen connections between memory, history, and imagination.
Project Curators:
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Galya Solodovnikova
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Polina Bakhtina
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Evgeny Mandelstam
Performers:
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Fyodor Kokorev
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Victoria Goncharova
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Ira Karpusheva
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Evgenia Poplavskaya
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Anna Dobranskaya
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Sofia Salman
Composers:
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Anastasia Astrakhantseva
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Vladimir Movchanyuk
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Oleg Shilin
Created in collaboration with Elena Sakirko.

Welcome to the Interworld Communication Facility “Antenna”
Good day! Welcome to “Antenna”, a facility dedicated to the production of interworld communication.
Over the next hour, you will go through several preparatory operations—crucial steps that will help establish a connection between our world and the realm of spirits. The organization of this communication is the core mission of every workshop within “Antenna”.
Your Guide, a navigator in the physical world, will assist you in moving along the designated route...
The Antenna Archive: Memory Preservation Center
// A piano plays softly in the background. //
Welcome to the Antenna Archive, the center of memory preservation!
Take a moment to explore the space. Locate your designated storage slot in the archive cabinets—match the color to your ticket and check the number. Each cabinet represents a workspace. (20 seconds)
Now, let’s begin the archiving process.
Move to your assigned station and carefully read the instructions inside your compartment.
// The Archivist assists participants in finding their designated slots. //
// Pause (music) - 20 seconds for reading the instructions. //
Step 1: Encoding Memory
Take a quill, dip it in milk, and write the password from your personal profile in any chosen social network onto a blank sheet of paper.
// Pause (music) - 20 seconds. //
Place the paper inside a jar and select additional ingredients to complete your personal archive. These elements can be found in drawers and shelves labeled for this purpose.
// Pause (music) - 3 minutes for ingredient selection. //
Once your jar contains everything of importance to you, choose and add a filler that resonates with your story.
// Pause (music) - 1 minute. //
Step 2: Preservation & Sealing
We now proceed to the archiving-conservation phase. Please wait for the Archivist’s arrival.
// Music shifts—2 minutes as the sealing process begins. Participants who have finished may explore the archive further. //
Border Zone
Since ancient times, humans have sought to unravel the mystery of death, to understand what comes after—as if attempting to transcend the limits of their own comprehension. In many ways, our entire culture is an attempt to overcome the fear of death and its inevitability.
As part of the Meta Moscow project, inspired by the short story Antenna for Communicating with the Dead, we invite you to embark on a journey through parallel worlds, to reflect on the relativity of life and death, and to search for channels of connection with other, as-yet unseen realms.
We want the audience to sense the fragility of the boundaries between different worlds, the liminal state, and the endless cycle of life and death.
/Warehouse Mark// (Located to the left of the door INSIDE, at the exit from building 3 to the street) //Serious and solemn voice// Dear visitors! You have approached a highly dangerous workshop. Please remain calm. This is a border zone—the only railway station in the world where the living and the dead meet. Now, begin your exit to the street! Keep moving, do not hold up those waiting behind you. //In a voice like train station announcements, with station background noises// Welcome to MEETING POINT station. Let’s begin our tour. Turn left and walk further inside. You will see various materials that have arrived at the workshop for further processing. It has been observed that dead matter nourishes the antenna through its continuous anticipation of another life. Your first task is to find the message board. This message has arrived for you. You must take one board. //Station-recorded voices begin playing in the background// Look around carefully. Those arriving here on the platform of interworld communication do not always have a visible, familiar silhouette—you may miss an important encounter meant for you. //Background voices of passersby, train station sounds// Now, look where the trains are arriving from. Look at the fence. Listen closely! //Snippets of real recorded conversations from a train station grow louder, as if people are passing by// (10 seconds of intensified train station chatter) Are you ready to make contact? We are beginning. //Background station conversations continue// //Train station-style announcement voice// Attention! Dear visitors! The act of communication is about to begin at MEETING POINT station. You should be holding one message. Now, return to the Meeting Point sign and stand in the circle of your assigned color, facing each other. (At this moment, the narrator’s voice may distort, as if interference from the world of the dead is disrupting the signal.) Please, be joyful. //SIGNAL// Attention! The act of communication is beginning! Step into the circles and raise your boards! //The guide ensures that all participants hold a board, stand in their designated circles, and raise their boards. If someone is missing a board, they are given one silently and guided into position. Once everyone is in place, the guide takes a small sheet of mirrored polycarbonate (prepared in storage near the door or part of the costume) and approaches each participant in turn, pausing so they can see their reflection.// //The boards display statements about immortality, memory, and life—quotes from ordinary people collected in the book Postcards from the Other Side.// //PAUSE – 40 SECONDS – COMMUNICATION SESSION – A sudden change in music, a moment of magic.// Can death be understood? Can a person be dead while still alive? (Pause – 5 SECONDS) (A distinct musical transition, different from the previous one.) //TRAIN STATION ANNOUNCEMENT VOICE// Dear visitors of the Antenna! Congratulations—the act of communication has taken place. You may now leave MEETING POINT and continue your journey. All those waiting and longing for connection thank you for these acts of solitary communication! Do not lower your boards—carry them with you along your route. The spirits you now represent will continue to follow you. Now, press the red button to proceed further. //Background voices—some expressing gratitude, some passing by, a mix of reactions—voices rise and fall, creating a layered soundscape.//