elegantchikova

Elena Gantchikova-Mathiesen, working under the artistic pseudonym Elegantchikova, is a French synesthetic artist, composer, pianist, multimedia interdisciplinary author, writer, researcher and analyst, cultural commentator and educator of Moscow origin, living and working in Paris. Her artistic practice unfolds in a harmonious symbiosis of visual and musical arts, written and spoken artistic word, advanced digital technologies, performance and concert practice. Elegantchikova is open to collaboration with museums, galleries, festivals, curators, architects, cultural institutions, research centers, publishers and international partners. Her goal is the further integration of her artistic corpus into the contemporary institutional, exhibition, musical, publishing and collecting environment. I. Authorial Practice and Collection Model at This Stage The development of computing technologies, professional software and digital production tools has opened for interdisciplinary authors the possibility of creating complex works within an independent studio, while retaining full control over the artistic and technical process. For Gantchikova, this has been a period of sustained, continuous and purposeful research and creative process, becoming an intensive laboratory for shaping her authorial method, visual and musical languages, means of expression, technological toolkit, concept, philosophy and aesthetics, as well as resulting in a substantial body of completed works. Her practice unfolds in a continuous Physical → Digital → Physical movement: a drawing, photograph, painterly or spatial impulse passes through a complex digital process of authorial reworking and regains material form as a collectible work created for a specific scale, proportion and architectural environment. The Principle of Variations Central to her visual practice is the creation of Variations. Each Variation is an independent authorial work, not a mechanical enlargement, reduction or cropping of the source image. For each new scale, proportion and architectural context, the original musical-visual world is independently recomposed. Such a variation retains the work's inner compositional logic while acquiring a new spatial body and a new intensity of engagement with the viewer. Gallery and Edition Standard Collectible works by Elegantchikova are released in rare editions of ED 3 + 2 AP. Each variation is treated as an independent authorial work created for a specific proportion and environment. Printing is carried out in Paris at the Dupon laboratory. The artist personally attends the printing of originals and limited editions, controls quality, signs each copy and issues a certificate of authenticity. Printing materials are from Hahnemühle: for the Golden Collection, Hahnemühle Photo Metallic is used; for other series, Hahnemühle Baryta Glossy or Baryta Matte papers, canvases, or other materials depending on the project and the client’s preference. Depending on format and artistic requirements, works may be prepared for mounting on an aluminum substrate with reinforcement ensuring stability and durability for exhibition. Works are shipped in flat, reinforced professional packaging. Body of Work and Archival Heritage Her extensive body of completed work includes artistic works of varying formats — from medium to monumental (painting and digital painting, fine art photography, collages, assemblages, video); musical and acoustic works in the form of musical scores and multichannel studio recordings for installations and immersive environments; literary texts; various multimedia and multidisciplinary derivatives; as well as concert and performance programs in live execution. Elena Gantchikova-Mathiesen is the sole custodian of the "Gantchikov(a) & Mathiesen" family archive, containing materials dating back to 1860. The archival, research and publishing work related to the legacy of Victor Mathiesen and Valery Gantchikov develops as a separate area of her activity and will, in future, be presented in an independent institutional form. At this stage, this catalogue of artistic works is ready for systematic integration into the international exhibition, concert, publishing, institutional and collecting environment. The formation of this coherent authorial method began long before its theoretical articulation — in a family where art of different disciplines was an everyday environment, not a chosen profession. II. A Multinational Interdisciplinary Artistic Dynasty as the Source For Elegantchikova, interdisciplinarity is not a nod to current fashion or a combination of disparate skills. It is her natural creative environment, shaped since childhood within a large multinational artistic dynasty, where practitioners of opera, theater, cinema, music, painting, photography, artistic crafts, architecture, and exact sciences taught her the fundamentals of their professions, the secrets of working with material, methods of study, analysis, thinking, and the laws of human perception. From an early age, Elena developed simultaneously as a painter, musician and dancer. Her deep curiosity toward different art forms was never accompanied by passive study but by practical investigation: she embodied the results of each new experience in an independent, finished work of art. This is how her first paintings and plastic works, literary compositions, musical scores, concert programs, performances, audiovisual and radiophonic compositions, installations, and sound-visual immersive spaces came into being. III. Innate Synesthesia, Methodology, Interdisciplinary Polyartistic Art Throughout her life, Elena has consistently moved in one direction — toward the synthesis of the arts. Her guide in this process is an innate synesthesia: a continuous internal transformation of the visual into the musical, the musical into the spatial and material, and olfactory, chromatic, luminous and tactile sensations into visual and sonic structures. This perceptual trait shapes not only the imagery of her works but the very way they are created: an impression or impulse received through one sensory system finds artistic embodiment through the means of another. For Elegantchikova: • Orchestral and synthetic timbres possess color and intensity; • Color possesses sonic timbre; • Line has melodic embodiment; • Composition unfolds in time; • Sound space is constructed architecturally; • A musical score is encoded within a painting. The primary impulse of a work always arises as an architectural plan — a system of forces, trajectories, layers, densities, rhythmic relationships, spatial interactions and directions of the movement of time and matter. This initial structure then materializes into one or several simultaneous forms: 1. An immersive audiovisual space, where the viewer-listener is inside the work of art; 2. An audiovisual installation, where the viewer-listener is an external observer of the object; 3. A painting-object, integrated into an architectural space; 4. A digital image or audiovisual composition, existing in a virtual environment; 5. An instrumental or orchestral score, ready for concert performance and studio recording; 6. An electroacoustic, radiophonic or acousmatic composition, intended for listening through headphones or in a specially equipped space; 7. Published literary works; 8. A stage performance and authorial piano recital surrounded by paintings, immersing the viewer-listener in a meditative perception of the world of Elegantchikova's art. Like facets of a single crystal, all of these are different material embodiments of one original idea and structure, aesthetic principles and philosophy. They are oriented toward the synthesis of the arts as their ultimate goal and address all channels of perception. Alongside aesthetic and philosophical considerations, the artist applies a museum-standard production to her works and pays exceptional attention to selecting the newest high-quality, environmentally sound and durable archival materials with guaranteed quality, intended for long-term preservation, along with professional quality control. All her works are signed, dated, accompanied by a certificate of authenticity with a hologram, and recorded in a unified registry. IV. Relevance of Practice and Full Copyright Autonomy At a time when international art is increasingly turning toward immersive formats, technological environments and interdisciplinary research, Elegantchikova has been working with new media since their emergence in the early 1990s, continuously integrating technical innovations into her creative process. She creates organically and originally at the intersection of arts and sciences, shaping the results of her experiments and research into new works of art. Her professional training and experience in each field — visual arts, music, literature, performance, and cutting-edge technology — allow her to combine them organically in her projects and create cohesive works in which no component is secondary. Full Autonomy in Copyright Matters An important practical advantage of her authorial model is full rights autonomy. Elegantchikova is the sole author of the visual, sonic, musical, textual and conceptual content of her works. Elegantchikova is the sole heir and rights holder of the family artistic heritage, confirmed by a notarial deed and extending to inherited property regardless of its form. This allows her to give her projects historical depth, and geographic, philosophical and aesthetic scope and perspective. For festivals, galleries, museums, architectural projects and digital platforms, this means the possibility of working with a ready-made "turnkey" interdisciplinary work, without the need to separately engage other rights holders. Copyright and licensing matters are unified under a single authorial corpus; rights to music and visual art are managed through the relevant professional systems, including the French authors’ societies SACEM, SACD and ADAGP.

Paul Sacher Foundation (Basel) and Archival Work: In 2001–2002, Elena continued her in-depth study of compositional techniques and the creative archives of leading contemporary authors during a research residency at the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel, under the guidance of its current director, Robert Piencikowski. At the same time, she worked in the foreign archive of Marina Tsvetaeva, creating librettos for large-scale musical works. One such work was Lumière ("Light"), a requiem in memory of her mother, cellist Victoria Mathiesen-Gantchikova, for cello orchestra, choir, mezzo-soprano and organ, commissioned by the Association of Cellists of Flanders. Its world premiere took place in 2005 at Antwerp Cathedral as part of the Europalia festival, in the presence of composer Giya Kancheli. The work was released on CD and DVD. VIII. Electroacoustics, Studio Technologies and Immersive Environments Having completed her higher education, the IRCAM Cursus, and her DEA, Elena continued, through a French-German scholarship, the professional specialization acquired at IRCAM — programming, sound synthesis, and spatial sound distribution: Technical University of Berlin (TU Berlin): In 1998–1999, at the electronic studio under the direction of Volkmar Haim, she pursued an in-depth study of sound synthesis, musical programming and spatial sound distribution, creating an immersive sound space as the outcome of this research and experimentation. In Berlin, Elena received professional consultations from composer Arvo Pärt. IMEB (Bourges): Beginning in 1997, annual one-to-three-month studio residencies during university summer breaks at the Institut international de musique électroacoustique de Bourges (IMEB) — one of the leading international laboratories for electroacoustic and experimental music, founded on the ideas of Pierre Schaeffer and French musique concrète (IMEB’s historical archives are today held at the French National Library / BnF). These studio residencies, research and creative work in this environment led to the creation of a large catalogue of electroacoustic, radiophonic and mixed works for electronic media and live instruments. Elena continued to carry out Berlin-based commissions and to build on her artistic impressions there even after completing her residency at the Technical University of Berlin. This resulted in one instrumental ensemble work and two electroacoustic immersive spaces: 9. The piece "Gate of the Goddess Ishtar," dedicated to the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, commissioned by the Institut de France and the Heidelberg Festival in 2000; 10. The immersive electroacoustic space "Lamentation," created in 1999, commissioned by founding director and human rights advocate Rainer Hildebrandt for the Checkpoint Charlie Museum in Berlin, in memory of those who died attempting to cross the Berlin Wall; 11. A sound immersive space for the Russian Pavilion at EXPO 2000. In "Lamentation," Elena used, acoustically processed, polyphonically combined and transformed recordings of authentic ancient Russian laments from the White Sea region, which she had personally recorded and transcribed during ethnomusicological expeditions. This work resonated particularly well, in its mixed live-performance version with musicians and light projections on the walls, at the 2000 festival of Hungarian State Radio at Sárvár Castle, once belonging to the legendary "Blood Countess" Báthory. It was precisely in these works that the practice of creating Elegantchikova's immersive spaces gradually took shape — spaces in which sound, artistic word, movement, light, visual imagery and architecture are fused into a single fabric. Particular attention is paid to the trajectories of sound movement in space, the listener-viewer's interaction with the multichannel environment, and the transformation of the exhibition space into an active musical-visual instrument. Her electroacoustic and interdisciplinary works consistently receive recognition at international competitions. World premieres have taken place in France, Germany, Hungary, Austria, Russia and other countries. IX. Interdisciplinary Projects Elena Gantchikova’s (in the German transliteration, Elena Gantschikova) first major interdisciplinary works were presented during her residency at the Berlin Academy of Arts, as part of the six-month "Berlin–Moscow" festival in 1995. The Academy gave her the opportunity to unfold at full scale and realize several authorial projects simultaneously, revealing herself as a conceptual artist, orchestral, studio and ballet composer, pianist, writer of texts, and creator of spatial forms. "Monsterhaus" (Akademie der Künste & Galerie am Marstall, Berlin): a conceptual multimedia project combining symphonic and studio electroacoustic music, spatial immersivity, photography, video, Klanginstallation, ballet, and poetry. It became an important starting point of Elegantchikova’s practice — creating works in which different artistic languages form a single organism. "The World of Andrei Voznesensky: Chagall’s Sky and Goya’s World in Black": it was at this festival that her collaboration with poet Andrei Voznesensky began, in her conceptual project created at the IMEB studios in Bourges. The processing, transformation and instrumentation of a studio recording of the poet’s voice reciting his poems were combined with a sonified world of Chagall’s and Goya’s imagery, forming an immersive sound space woven from sounds moving along complex trajectories in the then newly invented Dolby 4D. The world premiere took place at the Festival International Synthèse in Bourges in 1997, then at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow as a sound installation alongside an exhibition of Andrei Voznesensky’s "videomes." The Russian concert premiere took place in the hall of the Moscow Union of Composers as part of the "Moscow Autumn" festival, and it was later presented at the Rostrum of Electronic Music in Vienna. X. Educational Activity, Pedagogy and Criticism Beyond her creative activity, Elena Gantchikova-Mathiesen carries out ongoing educational and pedagogical work ("Diffusion and Pedagogy"). Drawing on her scholarly and theoretical education and her experience in journalism and broadcasting, and as a permanent member of the Association de la Presse Étrangère (APE), Elena publishes analytical and research-based art-historical and musicological reviews, reports and interviews in the professional press on major events in the Parisian and international artistic scene, grounding her authorial artistic practice in the study of the contemporary cultural process. Her educational activity contributes to the transmission of knowledge, the creation of context, and the maintenance of dialogue among authors, performers, institutions and audiences. Her pedagogical work has taken shape in her registered authorial method, Alliance Piano (alliancepiano).

V. Visual Art and Family Origins Elena received her initial artistic education within her family, from masters whose names and schools already belong to art history. • Grandfather: Victor Alexandrovich Mathiesen, from a Norwegian-French-German Moscow family — a painter, and later (together with his wife) an actor of Alexander Tairov’s innovative synthetic theater, which integrated all stage elements: word, music, song, pantomime and dance. A film actor who worked with the finest Soviet directors, he was a graduate of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, in the class of the first Russian Impressionist, Konstantin Korovin. • Father: Valery Gantchikov — a painter (graduate of the same school), a film cameraman (graduate of Mosfilm’s cinematography courses), a photographer, an engineer-architect, a Doctor of Technical Sciences, and an Honored Inventor of the Soviet Union. They sought to teach Elena everything they knew and could do. Their teaching was built not only on the transmission of technical skills but on the systematic formation of professional vision. It included the analysis of works by the great masters through in-depth study of the entire history of art from its origins, drawing technique, watercolor, oil painting and modeling, still-life work in interiors, plein-air landscape work, the study of anatomy, the nature of light, form, perspective and material, and the illustration of works of world literature as they were read. Such an education, from an early age, taught Elena to perceive an image not as a decorative surface but as a complex compositional system connected to philosophy, literature, music, space, history and human experience. Her further artistic development continued at the Moscow School of Fine Arts, as well as in the private studios of People’s Artist of the RSFSR, Academician Anatoly Vladimirovich Kokorin, and metaphysical painter Gennady Ivanovich Troshkov. From traditional drawing, painting, work from life and the study of classical schools, Elena arrived at her own multi-stage, multilayered technique, involving a handmade digital brush, collage, assemblage of different materials, complex layering of textures, transparencies, color fields and spatial rhythms, with repeated movement between the physical and digital environments. In 1991, having moved to Paris as a state scholarship holder for study and research in new technologies at IRCAM / Centre Pompidou and through the student exchange between the Moscow and Paris conservatories, Elena found herself in an environment where contemporary art, music, performance, cinema, architecture, science and technological experimentation existed in constant dialogue and interaction. Continuous immersion in the artistic life of Paris, with its regular and vivid cultural events in museums, galleries, theaters, exhibition and concert halls, along with its international professional community, became an integral part of her ongoing research and analytical process, personal growth and creative development. As a cultural commentator, analyst, art historian, and music and art critic (a permanent member of the Association de la Presse Étrangère — APE), she regularly publishes analytical articles, interviews, reports and reviews in professional publications, combining her own artistic practice with the study of the current cultural context. VI. Music, Composition and Performance Training Her path in musical education represents a single, continuous, logical and consistent journey with switching points between Moscow and Paris. Elena’s musical development began in earliest childhood under the guidance of her mother, Victoria Mathiesen-Gantchikova, a concert cellist and graduate of the Moscow Conservatory in the class of Mstislav Rostropovich, simultaneously in several directions: piano and organ performance, pedagogy, composition, music theory, harmony, counterpoint, orchestration, analysis of musical forms, music history, symphonic conducting, and work with large-scale dramatic structures. From 1988, upon graduating from the Advanced School of the Moscow Conservatory, Elena worked as a concert pianist for the Moscow Regional Philharmonic and the "Soyuzconcert" agency, combining concert activity with continued study and the expansion of her professional interests and horizons. She received her fundamental higher academic musical education at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory. In 1991, as a second-year student of the Theory and Composition Faculty of the Moscow Conservatory with a specialization in piano, Elena was selected by Pierre Boulez for the Cursus in Computer Music for Composers, which he had devised, at IRCAM. Boulez’s aim in this experiment was to train a unique breed of synthetic professionals — composers and programmers in one. After being awarded the French State Scholarship, Elena was enrolled through the exchange program between the composition faculties of the Moscow and Paris Conservatories and spent the following five years receiving her higher education in Paris, as described in detail in the next chapter. In 1995, having obtained her DEA research degree, she resumed her studies in the third year at the Moscow Conservatory, supported by the presidential composer’s scholarship of Boris Yeltsin (1995–1998), completed the full course of study, and graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1998. Throughout her life, during her studies, Elena had the good fortune to receive knowledge and skills directly from the hands of the greatest masters and teachers of their time in every professional field she studied, many of whom have already entered history. Among her mentors were: • Composer, pianist and philosopher Albert Leman (a student of Dmitri Shostakovich, and teacher of Mikhail Pletnev and Sofia Gubaidulina); • Pianist and theorist Elena Sorokina; • Theorists Alexander Sokolov (now Rector of the Moscow Conservatory) and Yuri Kholopov — the founder of several foundational directions in modern music theory; • Pianist Valery Kastelsky; • Symphonic conductor Igor Stegman. Her deepened interest in conducting continued in Saint Petersburg, where Elena trained under Ilya Musin (the teacher of Yuri Temirkanov, Valery Gergiev, Tugan Sokhiev, and Teodor Currentzis). In 1998, Elena graduated from the Moscow Conservatory with honors in composition, piano, theoretical subjects, symphonic conducting, and pedagogy. This multifaceted professional foundation allowed her to regard music not merely as a performing art, but as a complex system of thought, organization of time, energy, space, creation and collective action. While still in her fourth year at the Conservatory, Elena was admitted to the Composers’ Unions of Russia and Moscow. Her graduation work was a symphony for symphony orchestra along with a number of chamber compositions. (Years of study at the Moscow Conservatory: 1989–1991; 1995–1998.) During this same period, she hosted a series of authorial radio programs on Radio Orfeo, exchanging recordings with the state music radio channels of forty member countries of the International Music Council under UNESCO and the International Rostrum of Composers, where Elena served for several years as the delegate from Russia. At the annual summer sessions of the Rostrum, she presented recordings of new works by Russian composers and brought back material for her programs: audio recordings, musical scores and musicological materials. This work was of great importance in introducing audiences to the latest achievements in composition and in studying new compositional techniques from around the world. VII. Higher Education in Paris, New Technologies, Scholarly and Compositional Work in Contemporary Art From 1991 to 1995, as a state scholarship holder of France, Elena completed a full course of higher education in France related to the study of contemporary compositional techniques, physics and sound synthesis, CAD/CAO, and contemporary art. IRCAM / Centre Pompidou (Paris): At IRCAM, she completed the Cursus d’informatique musicale pour compositeurs — the computer music course for composers created by Pierre Boulez. Elena worked in a scientific environment alongside a large team of engineers, inventors, researchers, programmers and sound engineers, as well as with composer Brian Ferneyhough (New Complexity). There she studied computer-assisted composition, the six fundamental methods of sound synthesis, real-time sound synthesis and processing, acoustics, psychoacoustics and various models for shaping sound material. The creative outcome of her two-year study at the Cursus was a composition for piano and real-time sound synthesis dedicated to the phenomenon of fluctuating light, and the expansion and contraction of illuminated space, in the Aven Armand cave (a forest of 400 stalagmites, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Occitanie and Lozère). The piano part in this work was performed by Elena Gantchikova herself. Already in this work, the principles most important to her subsequent practice emerged: the translation of visual and spatial impressions into musical form, the union of live performance with technology, and the creation of sound environment as perceived architecture. CNSMDP (Paris Conservatory): At the same time, within the framework of the student exchange between the composition faculties of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, Elena studied spectral composition and orchestration in the class of Gérard Grisey, the founder of spectral technique. In addition, she attended master-class residencies with Tristan Murail at the Royaumont Abbey and with Helmut Lachenmann at the Chartreuse Abbey. This led, on the one hand, to the creation of new ensemble and orchestral works ("Tistou," "Metel"/"The Blizzard"), and on the other, to the preparation of solo piano programs of contemporary French composers’ music. These programs were prepared under the guidance of the composers themselves and performed in the halls of the Moscow Conservatory and the Union of Composers in Moscow, as well as during touring performances across the countries of the former USSR. Université Paris IV — Sorbonne: Of great significance for understanding her own synesthetic nature was her research on the synesthesia and esotericism of Alexander Scriabin at the Sorbonne under the guidance of musicologist and composer Manfred Kelkel. Working on translations of Russian-language sources for his monograph on Scriabin, Elena undertook an in-depth study of the historical, aesthetic and compositional foundations of the synthesis of light, color and music. This research helped her more precisely structure her own mode of perception and creation, and to translate it from the realm of intuitive experience into a consciously developed artistic method. EHESS / CNRS: Elena continued her scholarly research into 20th-century art, contemporary composition and artistic technologies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), in conjunction with the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), under the guidance of the philosopher and spectralist composer Hugues Dufourt. Elena defended her DEA (Diplôme d’études approfondies) thesis and continued work on her doctoral dissertation, which was suspended until its completion for a subsequent reformulation of the topic. Simultaneous Interpreting for Iannis Xenakis: During the historic visit to Moscow of the Greek-French composer and architect, a student of Le Corbusier — Iannis Xenakis — Elena Gantchikova served as simultaneous interpreter for his lectures at the Moscow Conservatory and the Union of Composers, which allowed her to deepen her knowledge in these fields and act as a bridge between the Moscow professional audience and Xenakis.