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Mikhail Larionov (1881-1964) Ozz.. (1912) Sound transcription of the illustration for World Backwards [Mir s kontsa], 1912, 2'14". MP3 Performer [Sound Improvisation] – Ernest Peshkov Recording – Miguel Molina, Audio Laboratory of the UPV Dpt. of Sculpture (Valencia, Spain) Production Date – 2006 Mikhail Fedorovich Larionov (b. Tiraspol/Russia 1881 - d. Fontenay-aux-Roses/France 1964), was a key painter in the pre-revolutionary Russian avant-garde. In 1912, along with Natalia Gonchorova, he created the group Donkey's Tail, with cubo-futurist influence and an emphasis on "Russifying Western forms", which led it to adhere to Neo-Primitivism and recovering Russian popular roots. In 1913 he created a new movementwhich he called Rayonism, a synthesis of Cubism, Futurism and Orfism, based on the "theory of radiation, radioactivity", in which one of the main components is the decomposition (irradiation) of the painting in luminous beams (rayons), according to Larionov: "Of the rays of the things that the artist submits to his will of aesthetic expressiveness". The work included in this recording is a free interpretation from an illustration by Larionov from 1912, where the head of a man intones the word "Ozz", an apparently senseless sound, seemingly from a shaman in a state of metamorphosis or trance whose spirit is transformed within him into animal form (according to the tradition of North Asian mythology). The use of the expression "Ozz" captures the character of the group Donkey's Tail, particularly through the poets Kruchenykh and Khlebnikov, in the use of trans-mental and trans-rationa l language (zaum). RELATED RESOURCES: Russian Futurists from the GLM Collection (1920-1959) Sound Experiments in The Russian Avant-Garde (1908-1942)