Skip to main content

PhD Research

In my doctoral research I would like to examine how the basic characteristics of lyric poetry can be expressed in audio-visual medium, particularly in live poetry performance and poetry-in-ink-and-film:

(1) form,
(2) musical qualities,
(3) figurative language,
(4) non-narrative, vertical investigation of the situation, and
(5) the first-person point of view/ a self-reflexive speaker.

The research places particular emphasis on the most specific and direct use of lyric poetry within live performance, poetry in drawings and filmed poetry.

The research instruments (the analysis of live performances/poetry visualisations and the practical experiments in my own productions) should lead to a better understanding of my poetry-in-performance practice within contemporary poetry field and serve as an impetus for realising lyric poetry within the audio-visual medium.

The research question will be addressed from two interlocking perspectives.

On the one hand, an overview of the existing theory is given. I chose symphonism as a theoretical framework-thread of my research (‘conversations with symphonism’). Symphonism is where I discuss and evaluate the theories that are most relevant to my research. I analyse how A.Bely and M.Čiurlionis applied the method of symphonism in their art works (I will soon publish an article-explanation on why I chose symphonism as a theoretical thread).

On the other hand, this theoretical investigation will provide input for the series of my own poetry-in-performance experiments. My goal is to use methods such as theory on symphonism, poetry-in-performance and visualisations of poetry in ink and film to find out how can a lyric poem be expressed on stage and in audio-visual medium.

Since I write in Russian and in English, one of the side-questions that I will try to answer during this research period is ‘What is the effect of a different language on the combination of text and image’?

The practical part of this research work, poetry-in-performance, is realised in collaboration with and under the guidance of Sara Maino, Theatre Director/Performer (Italy).

The practical part, poetry-in-ink-and-film, is realised in collaboration with Bart Dewolf (visual artist, Belgium), Diren Agbaba (cinematographer, Bemgium) and Aram Karakhanyan (actor, Armenia).

Supervisors:
Dr. Volkmar Mühleis (supervisor, KU Leuven/LUCA)
Dr. Jan Peeters (co-supervisor, KU Leuven/LUCA)
Dr. Steven Malliet (co-supervisor, KU Leuven/LUCA)

University: KU Leuven/LUCA School of Arts
Research Unit: Image
Duration: 2018 – ongoing

From left to right: Marina Kazakova (researcher), Annelies Monsere (Head of research unit ‘Image’), Jan Peeters (co-supervisor), Volkmar Muhleis (supervisor)

The book “Symphonism as a strategy of translating a lyric poem into drawings” is published by Fractalia Press