Today we’d like to introduce you to Eldar Tagi and Lena Pozdnyakova the2vvo.
Eldar and Lena, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
We are a multimedia artist duo, originally from Almaty, Kazakhstan. Forming together a blend of architectural, music, sound and visual art background influences most of our endeavors to be some sort of combines in the forms of installations, noise sculptures, music albums, exhibition scores and audiovisual live performances – all fueled with a spirit of free improvisation. The original concept for the project was to travel to various places and document our experiences through artworks. We wanted it to be simple so that we allowed for imperfections and raw ideas.
We also didn’t put a boundary on whether what we post online is visual art, sound art or a mixture of both. It could be either or both. The project started entirely on our shared enthusiasm to collaborate, travel and make things. We wanted to feel the freedom to make and share whatever we wanted, without thinking much whether it’s good or bad.
Over the last 4 years, we had an experience of living in several different countries and the project was taking a new turn at every step. Last September we’ve relocated to Los Angeles and quickly became involved with the local underground art and music scene.
We organize a couple of ongoing monthly events on both East and West sides of the city and try to participate in the cities cultural life as actively as our always transitioning lifestyle lets us.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
As we’ve mentioned, the form of our expression can take several different forms. Over the years we’ve acquired a taste for raw aesthetics. We like it when things, though potentially abstract, cut to the core and void of further decoration. We think beauty comes in many forms and it is only a perspective that shifts and ascribes values to things.
To our view, the strongest element of our collaboration is our difference – Lena is very much into conceptual development and technology unrelated manual approach to creativity and I’ve developed into always using machines and electronic instruments in my processes. So our results are always somewhere in between automatic and manual.
Things that are happening with us in our lives are always influencing the work in one way or another. It can be in the form of a simple idea or simply an expressive bit of improvisation. As for why we make things. The truth probably is that we can’t “not make” them, it is simply in our nature and that is how we process the world and try to make sense of things for ourselves.
What would you recommend to an artist new to the city, or to art, in terms of meeting and connecting with other artists and creatives?
Well… for us it never is lonely. But of course, we have all been there. The truth is that being human can be lonely and often is. Life by a large amount is a subjective experience and loneliness always is a suffering related to the realization of self. It is very important to connect with other people for a healthy well being.
It requires effort, but the level of difficulty varies depending on many factors individually. So it’s hard to give a general advice. But trying to recognizing your needs and not letting yourself suffer more than needed will help. We try to get stronger than our environment. It is hard, but we keep working.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
We try to update things dynamically on our website too. At the bottom of the homepage are links to all of our social media, SoundCloud and Bandcamp pages.
Also, you are welcome to visit our events, “plum” and “slowdown sessions”.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.the2vvo.com/
- Email: the2vvo@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/the2vvo/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/the2vvo
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/the2vvo
- Other: https://soundcloud.com/the2vvo
Image Credit:
Diyara Shukbarova, Maria Aus
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