TARWUK: 'Welcome to the tunnels made of flesh, where tall fires keep on burning and where the Tale is still very much alive'

Vitaly Bezpalov: You work much and consistently under the topics related to paganism. This one topic and similar ones have recently become very popular in contemporary art and beyond. Fake news, in particular, seem to represent to us a modern version of such ancient religious beliefs. If earlier pagan iconography portrayed a god of thunder, now thunder and lightning are poured on the heads of frightened people during the bombings in the Middle East. At the same time the reality of these bombings remains inaccessible for all of us, as inaccessible as the reality within which the gods and spirits dwell. It may seem that sort of a new capitalist eschatological cult is born before our eyes. In your opinion, how close is the connection between modern and ancient versions of paganism?

TARWUK: Our dreams are not connected neither to each other nor to the rest of humanity. Every night we search for sense in them and every day we try to remember the truths that we were revealed. The despair settles once the dreams become lost in the daily madness of social interaction. We are only free when we are not aware of it.
BPT 14/15.9.2018.

The corridors were shifting between solid geometry and flesh-like substance, trying to maintain the rigid form for the sake of spacial configuration. As we turned, each corner seemed to shiver and dissolve into the soft wetness. Naked. Aware of the fact that I was naked, and that she was following me, running after me like a shadow. I turned to face her, and the chase reversed. There was an importance attached to that space, I knew it, but waking up I forgot why. This has happened once before, I was there. That building with its soft walls covered in mist. I remember. I know it was important, only if I remembered why… 

it hurts most of the time. it burns. always burns. the boiling blood, the hunger. dance of the misfits. she moon. burn in desire! surrender to her! pain is your salvation.

desolated landscape is where I want to be,

desolated landscapes always make me feel,

that possible is nothing, but why should we care,

when all we ever had will vanish in despair,

of our last breath,

of our own death.

Natalya Serkova: Your answer is as poetic as your relationship with the heritage of Eastern European culture, and it is also as macabre as your works reflecting on this heritage. In the dream you describe, one pursues another, and one of these two turns out to be naked. There is a superstition, that if you dream yourself naked  it means that you will soon get sick. But I still do not know what other things that happen in a dream may point to—for instance, what kind of delirium can be indicated with an obsessive dream in which you find yourself with a gun aimed at you or if you run down or up the stairs that break off between spans... What feels more real for you—the images and threads of impressions from dreams which then are reflected in art pieces, or events that occur at the other end of the world and touch your daily routine gently, like a flap of a butterfly’s wing?

TARWUK: Nothing seems real anymore. 

In a world where it is impossible to make a distinction, we insist on the super-subjective connections and simplification on the biological level. Two become one, and one is not a singular anymore. An entity created shifts between a host and a parasite, with a complex life cycle and multiple hosts. Kind of like Trematoda, really. Ever exposed to the external stimulai, without  a protective exoskeleton, free from an internal bone structure as well, it is destined to grow into the sac-like appearance only within the body of the infected victim. 

Maybe the thoughts are not really our own anyway, the language certainly is not. This ability for abstract thought we take so much pride in has lead into a feedback loop, where the only possibility for escape is internal.

Constant failure to communicate or to connect, separation from the truth so evident to others, and the confusion that ensues. 

Everything is too real, and nothing has limits to us anymore. We try to enter the world through the eyes of the soul-less, the minds of the demented and disturbed, feel it through the ganglia of crawling flukes. We were an egg once, now we are larvae.

(I was the world and the world was me.)

‘Consolidation and individual integrity, that’s what I agree with. But only in fantasy can the self control the world sufficiently. The society always oppresses the self. We've abandoned the rebellion and curled up into our shells. We are eternally disobedient but eternally defeated, escaping from society. A philosophy of prisoners!’

Eros+Massacre, Yoshishige Yoshida, 1969.

VB: You speak about escape into internal, while in your work one can find images of miners and references to the black soil, to the ground itself. The soil, narrow dark tunnels—this is a somewhat of ersatz of the habitat of the larva, which moves under the ground, gnawing its way. The mucous membrane with which it is covered allows it to easily slip everywhere. The larvae of many insects have semblances of eyes throughout their bodies, through which the whole body of the larva reacts to light and other stimuli. The larvae are very vivacious and voracious. Such an unconditional desire for survival is inversely proportional to the growth of consciousness, and it can be stated that this desire has one of the most critical indicators in case of human being. So, in what will your larva mutate, what is going to surround it and what kind of relationship will it build with the environment?

TARWUK: In seeking shelter from the expected enemy attack, they built these structures out of concrete, things of thick walls and hidden rooms within rooms. They saturated the land with them hoping the darkness inside will hide them from the world. 

First the world lingers in your eyes, still remembering the shapes and the light, but then it all dissolves into nothing. After a while, you adjust to it and start seeing the shape of darkness. It does have a shape, and within that shape there are other things. Once, in Paul’s room, we both saw something appear from the darkness. Cloudy white shapes swirled through the room without revealing any of their secrets. It was pitch black, or as Viktor would say, full immersion. We saw them, burrowing through space, larva dancing in the darkness that was once a room.

Larva needs softness. The earth is moist and dark. Growing. In darkness. Only once mature can it withstand the light. 

It is also quite possible that it contains both the light and the darkness within itself and doesn't need the outside world to expand. Its path is forever the downward one, spiraling, expanding internally. Maybe larva is the true shape of the universe, the shape of consciousness we can never understand. In the endless cycles of its existence, larva is eternal in its bright darkness.

We can’t change the world and can’t escape it either, so we keep on digging deeper into the ground. Welcome to the tunnels made of flesh, where tall fires keep on burning and where the Tale is still very much alive. Where we are all both infants and the ancient. 

NS: It is well known that after falling from a horse and his conversion, Paul the Apostle became blind for three days. Absolute darkness reigned over him in a room in which he stayed during this illness. However, along with this darkness, the light of the divine has flourished in his soul for the first time in his life. The manifestation of light always requires darkness, and the brighter the light, the blacker the darkness preceding it. Something appears from the darkness.  What comes with the light that you see lifting your head up from the larva’s nest? Will it be god, or devil, or maybe some other new metaphysical substance arising from a supernatural mutation?

Mother womb can tell no lie 

this flesh is not the mortal I

From her water you will rise

The new flesh has been baptized.

It is a small photo, maybe 9*13 or 10*15. The bear is in the middle, and these two men mimick his stance trying to put up the impression of being at ease and in control. They are all dead now, but the bear died first, and for the purpose of this photo it was frozen still standing on its rear legs mimicking attack.

There is a bowl of fruit on the window pane, next to two small plates, probably left overs of a party where they ran out of ashtrays. 

I came here for the book. That is the reason why I am freezing in this wooden chair, maybe even the reason why we all returned to the Old Country. It holds the secrets of young spirits from the brink of the century, of hopes and dreams, of love and violence, of their strength and ultimate failure. It holds so much power which I want to posses, hoping it would rub itself onto me, pour through its pages into my blood. We all feel its presence, it speaks to us in a way it does not to anyone else.

I need to think of her now. 

Dawn was slowly rising in the silence so thick that it seemed like no sound has ever existed. Cold stone walls were ready to shield this cursed land.

She was the one that came before everything else. And all of the things were in her, part of her. And then came the first divide, from one became the two, from self she took and created the darkness. Her son and brother, her half and herself, her secret and her kin, was the light.

So beautiful was the light, so bright and powerful, the light that came from her, the light that was her, the light she longed and desired for. The split made him left her with darkness, the darkness that yearned for the light, the light that was once her self, the self that gave it away. 

From her water you will rise

The new flesh has been baptized.

From her water you will rise

The new flesh has been baptized.

And here we meet them again, in the cold room on the very last floor of this structure, looking at the monuments people have erected to whatever Old Gods they feared then. We feel them all, both the dead folks and the dead Gods, but its not why we are here. Neither are we here to search for the bear, whose ghost is said to protect this place, and after whom the whole mountain takes its name. 

After almost a week of looking at the little black book, fearing to open it again, we realize that we can never posses it. It was given by the Gods themselves to one of the old priests, and is meant to lay forgotten in this room forever. Their moment is gone, they are either dead or too old to be relevant anymore, and their secrets and powers should not be disturbed. Now we realize what a majestic tomb this place is, and that we should have never came here. 

It might be too late to reach for the light now. As the darkness falls upon us, the space seems to look different. Somehow, the book is burning and in the flames we see the shape of Her.