“A disappointed lorgnette”, American shoes, posters: strategies of interpreting the futurists’ speech acts

A Wild Brawl: A Small Piece of Land in a Literary Terrain

At the Polytechnic Museum in March 1913, a poet Ilya Zdanevich delivered a speech on Italian Futurism, taking off a shoe (an expensive American shoe brand Vera Shoe) [Зданевич 2014, 103], demonstrating it to the public and audaciously proclaiming: “The art should reflect the modernity... I suppose the pair of modern shoes is far more valuable, more sophisticated, more useful than all the Leonardos” («Искусство должно отражать современность. Иначе -оно не искусство! И по-моему, пара ботинок - современных - дороже, и выше, и полезней всех Леонардо да Винчи») [Крусанов 1996, 86].

According to the newspapers, the presentation of a shoe led to a wild brawl involving face slapping and glass throwing [Крусанов 1996, 86]. Zdanev-ich’s mother would write to Ilya: "There is nowhere to go, you either stop or change the direction (italics in the original - A.S.)” («Дальше идти некуда, или остановись, или измени дорогу (курсив автора - А.Ш.)») [Зданевич 2014, 107]. Replying to the letter, Zdanevich noted that because of a fight he has got a letter from V. Brusov he had been waiting for [Зданевич 2014, 112]. The fight introduced Zdanevich to a member of the poetic establishment. The poet writes: “Look, we have got plenty of them, passing the exams with great diligence, known in university circles [only - A.S.], and writing papers. How could I renounce the opportunity, having been made visible but for an hour, to made myself heard, to make people pass on my motto” (the motto in question being “a pair of shoes is more valuable than all the Leonardos”) («Ведь посуди, сколько их, аккуратно сдающих экзамены, известных в университетских кругах, и пишущих работы. И неужели я могу отказаться от возможности, стремительно выдвинувшись из общей среды хоть на час, заставить себя слушать и передавать из уст в уста мои лозунги» [“Башмак прекраснее Венеры Милосской”, “Я хочу, чтобы солнце вставало, когда я хочу и пока я хочу, и т.п.”]») [Зданевич 2014, 112].

Provocation is regarded by Zdanevich as a way of attracting the addressee’s attention and switching to what he terms as “constructing an active role in life” («[Строительство играть роль в жизни» [Зданевич 2014, 112]), or constructing a reality-changing lifestyle. In that scenario, both the poet and the recipient could collaborate in re-organizing the forms of life around them (thus, paving the way for Constructivist projects of the 1920s).

An anonymous Futurist follower endorses Zdanevich’s view in “Peter-burgsky listok”: “Why do we act like schmucks, yell, make noise... having often been gifted yet humble youths, [we - A.S.] would rush toward an open window looking onto a garden, [would want to be published in - A.S.] journals, edited collections” [Крусанов 1996, 109] («Почему именно мы ломаем дурака, кричим, шумим... быв раньше нередко способными, но скромными юношами, [мы - А.Ш.] рвались к открытому окну в сад, в журналы, в сборники»), An aspiring poet assures us that “we would be stopped at a doorstep with our manuscripts left unread, we had just been told: there is no place for you” [Крусанов 1996, 109] («[В] дверях редакций нас всегда останавливали, не читая рукописей, просто говорили: нет места... двери повсюду закрыты»), “A humble, thoughtful literary work for us, beginners, appears to be impossible now. Thus, we’re seeking a way out in noise... in roar and thunder”. “We want that they give the most gifted of us a small piece of land in a literary terrain”, concludes the poet [Крусанов 1996, 109] («Скромная, вдумчивая литературная работа для нас, начинающих... невозможна сейчас... мы ищем выхода в шуме... грохоте. Мы хотим, наконец, чтобы... наиболее способным из нас дали небольшой клочок земли на литературной ниве... »).

The case with a public brawl highlights the ultimate goal of the Futurist scandal: not only shocking the addressee through scandal, but also putting the poet into the spotlight, enticing the recipient to work together with the poet (leading them to the goal of “constructing... life”).

A Literary Scandal: Necessary Components

Tracing a connection between avant-garde art and provocative artistic behavior is a popular commonplace: “It is impossible [to imagine avant-garde A.S.] without an active artistic ‘anti-behavior’, scandal, shock” («Авангард невозможен без активного “художественного антиповедения”, скандала, эпатажа») [Руднев 1997, 177]. Recent scholarship on communicative strategies in Russian Cubo-Futurism zeroes in on scandal as a mode of artistic communication, defining it through “an orientation towards... hooligan, conspicuously defiant begavior” («[Установка на... хулиганское, нарочито вызывающее поведение») [Казакова 2017, 230; Сироткин 1999; Алоян, Гмызина, 2018].

Nevertheless, in pragmatic terms, scandal as a mode of communication is not solely aimed at shocking the audience but rather (paradoxically) serves as a means of “finding contact with publics-crowd” («контакт с публикой-толпой») [Бобринская 2015,207], coming to terms with one’s addressee. A regular scandal is to be distinguished from “a literary scandal”, as Alexei Kruchenykh would insist. “A literary scandal”, according to Kruchenykh, “is not a drunk sc... mundane, ordinary” («не пьяны[й] ск<андал>, не бытов[ой], житейск[ий]») [Гурьянова 2006, 19; Швец 2020b], Public events hosted by Cubo-Futurists, in Kruchenykh’s view, “never resulted in a scandal or a police report” («[H]e было ни одного скандала, не было ни одного протокола полицейского») [Гурьянова 2006, 19]. Futurist scandals were performed “in a literary dimension” («[С]кандалы были в плане литературном») [Память теперь многое разворачивает 1999, 231] only, “for PR, to launch an advertising campaign” («для рекламы») [Гурьянова 2006, 19].

Pragmatically speaking, scandal as a mode of communication implies a deliberate provocation, a violation of established rules, meant not only to shock the recipients out of their complacency, but to engage them in a poetic performance, to turn the audience into active co-creators and co-authors [Швец 2020a; Швец 2020b; Швец 2021]. A formula of literary scandal consists of three components: a violation of communicative norms (most often, pretended); the presence of a wider public; the engagement of the said public.

In A. Reitblat’s view, one has to transgress the norms, have in mind a public to communicate news of the transgression to, distorted and exaggerated if necessary, and, finally, make the transgression public. To quote: the scandal relies on “the publicity of a violation and... the presence of public... an opportunity to bring the violation to the attention of the public”) («[П]убличность... нарушения... и наличие публики... возможность довести до общества информацию о проступке») [Рейтблат 2019, 172]. This definition holds true for real and literary scandals alike with the proviso that a literary scandal also entails “a play around art, necessarily conditional and lacking seriousness” («Игра вокруг искусства, по необходимости условная и несерьезная») [Иньшакова 2001, 165]. The violation of norms is only pretended, performed in a playful interaction between authors and their audience.

Scandal as a phenomenon (including literary scandal) cannot exist without

a special kind of public: a mass public that does not offer “an immediate physical connection between people yet there are invisible links, as strong as visible ones, formed by newspapers, books and other kinds of information circulating in a society and gripping the mind of masses” («[В публике нет - А.Ш.] непосредственной физической связи между людьми, однако существуют не менее прочные невидимые связи, формируемые газетами, книгами и прочими видами информации, которая циркулирует в обществе и захватывает сознание масс») [Бобринская 2015, 203].

Through a circulation of various discourses, a mass public is constituted as such, emerging as a network of “relation[s] among strangers” [Warner 2002, 55]. Public as “stranger-relationality in pure form” [Warner 2002, 56] is addressed as receptive to an utterance. Each member of the public is expected to express a participatory attitude [Warner 2002], to actively form the meaning of an utterance upon receiving it, share the impression with other people so that strangers are “[made] a bit less strange” [Warner 2002, 57]. Public “unites strangers through participation alone” [Warner 2002, 56].

A pretended scandalous event figures as a tool for fostering participation among strangers, engaging the public: eliciting an active response, making the audience co-producers of a message. A mass public, actively engaged in a scandal as a complex play, approximates the ideal of literary communication. Futurist public events attained but a few hundred [Крусанов 1996], partly due to a seating capacity of the halls chosen by the poets. However, public “visibility” was enhanced by press reviews and Futurist tours in 1913. The imaginary addressee was meant to be the mass public, up until the spectacular public shows of the 1920s [Clark 1998].

Literary scandal as a mode of communication brings the recipients and the speakers closer to each other due to a shared nature of a communicable experience. The latter is not necessarily reduced to a reaction of rejection or aversion but rather implies a broad gamut of possible responses: from shock to excitement on the account of being involved. All the reactions, with countless nuances of feelings, are prone to be shared and experienced together.

A Literary Scandal: Recipients and Interpretative Strategies

In the play of a “literary scandal” between the authors and their public in the case of Cubo-Futurists we could distinguish between two profiles of reception. The first profile could be characterized as skeptical and critical towards Futurist performances. The second profile could be presented as sympathizing with the quest for the new art and willing to participate in the experiment. The first type often refers to so-called “gazetchiki”, “newshawks”, or newspaper reporters covering Futurist performances (often in a negative light). That recipient would unfold a story of “a big, fat scandal” («громк[ий] и груб[ый] скандал»): “Stories of scandal were routinely made up and spread by overzealous news reporters” («Скандал обыкновенно присочиняли и размазывали не в меру усердные газетчики») [Крученых 1996, 68].

The second type, an interested reader / viewer, would belong to a student community and would be keen on new trends in art. As R.O. Jakobson points out (as a witness to the events): “Futurists’ evening used to gather an incredible number of listeners... lots would go in for a scandal, but a broader student public was waiting for a new art, craved for a new word” («Вечера футуристов собирали невероятное количество публики... многие приходили ради скандала, но широкая студенческая публика ждала нового искусства, хотела нового слова») [Роман Якобсон. Будетлянин науки 2012, 22].

These two types possess different functions. A typical news reporter would “make up” the scandal: combine the facts so as to illuminate a violation of the norm, draw the attention to the violation, spread the information and make it public, communicating the news to those who did not attend the event (and including them into public by proxy), offering a ready-made judgment. In other words, the news reporter was a middle man between the poet and the public for creating the public through the circulation of discourse and making the shared experience widely accessible. The second type, an “ally”, seems to have participated in a public act, co-producing the aesthetic event, collaborating with the author. Both types of recipients are associated with different forms of participation, and both forms of participation appear to be essential for constituting a public and mobilizing the addressee.

The two types could be linked to two interpretative strategies, respectively. The key difference between the strategies concerns the ways of interpreting speech acts. In analytical philosophy [Austin 1962], a speech act hinges upon a publicly recognized, conventional context, and within that context the very “act” produced by words is well-defined and could be easily predicted. In the deconstruction-oriented revision of the theory [Derrida 1988; Miller 2002], the emphasis is placed on the plurality, varialibity, and unpredictability of all possible contexts, so that we range of potential uses and effects of an utterance appears to be endless.

A similar opposition was offered by an actor-network sociologist M. Callon to describe the economic behavior of agents, namely, the opposition between “framing” (E. Goffman) and “overflowing” [Callon 1998]. “Framing” implies that a phenomenon is “framed” by a particular context and interpreted within that context alone. The spectrum of potential meanings of a phenomenon is deliberately limited by the contextual clues.

For Callon, a typical example (and a particularly apt one with regards to public performances of Futurists) is “a stage performance” that “could not take place without the tacit agreement of all those taking part” [Callon 1998, 249]. The tacit agreement consists in the fact that “[t]he spectators know what ‘watching a theatrical production’ entails and what rules they should obey... the actors know what is expected of them” [Callon 1998, 249]. These “tacit agreements would swiftly fall apart if they were not contained within a suitable physical framework” [Callon 1998, 249], or a particular material, social context, “a whole series of material means... used to demarcate the theatrical space and the actions that take place within it” [Callon 1998, 249], such as a black curtain

“makfing] the uncertain spectator aware that this is ‘THE END’ rather than just another interval” [Callon 1998, 249].

Overflowing suggests that “framing” could be “deliberately transgressed by the actors” so that “the barriers... become permeable” [Callon 1998, 251]. Overflowing involves a suspension of a frame containing the utterance and imposing an interpretative scenario, bracketing off the knowledge of what is expected of viewers and actors. Once the frame is suspended, it is transgressed and violated so that actors and public realize there no conventional boundaries and play-rules regulating their interaction and shaping the meaning. The public and the actors could improvise together, creating new scenarios for interpreting the utterance [Швец 2020а].

Both a news reporter and an “ally” as avatars of the public manifest participatory behavior yet reveal different attitudes as far as the interpretation of a speech act is concerned. A news reporter is prone to apply “framing”, whereas an “ally” would be leaning towards “overflowing”. A news reporter would contextualize an utterance so as to clarify its meaning within a context conceived of as a well-demarcated stage with clear-cut rules of interaction and comprehensible scenario. An “ally” would rather expect a switch between different “frames” and different contexts, different stages with various rules and overlapping boundaries.

A reporter’s “framing” would consist in presenting a public event as a scandal. An “ally’s” “overflowing” would translate into a lively attention and a direct interest in the event itself. On the first Futurist evening (13th October 1913) in Moscow, “the public would be all ears, oblivious to everything” («публика слушала, развесив уши») [Лившиц 1933, 171]. Another possible reaction could include intense applause and a general expression of approval. The first production of “Victory over Sun” in December 1913 in Petersburg was marked by “a continuous, mighty uproar” («сплошн[ой], могуч[ий] рев») [Крученых 1996,71].

The uproar was not necessarily indicative of a public outrage, even in the end, when the audience demanded that the author make appearance on the stage. “[T]he chief administrator Fokin... would whisper to my ear: ‘Don’t come out! It is a provocation, the public is going to trick you!’ ” («[Г]лавный администратор Фокин... шептал... мне: - Не выходите! Это провокация, публика устроит вам гадость!») [Крученых 1996, 72]. Yet the audience was applauding, with Ilya Zdanevich and “ardent followers” («горячие поклонники») in the front rows [Крученых 1996, 72].

At the same time, a critic (“reporter”) A.A. Mgebrov in a late, post-factum interpretation reproduces newspapers discourse and describes “Futurist plays” in a different way: “there was scandal in the air... Enough! - the public would yell... no one understood anything, there was much confusion. There were arguments, cries, excitement” («[В] воздухе висел настоящий скандал... Довольно! - кричала публика... никто ничего не понял, но недоумения было много. Были споры, крики, возбуждение») [Мгебров 1932, 282].

It seems that the critic (corresponding to the first type, a reporter) places emphasis on “arguments, cries”, or on the effect of speech acts, and “frames” these very speech acts. For instance, a lone cry “enough!” is sufficient for him to say that the whole production dissatisfied the viewers. At the same time, the author of the play (an “ally”) would notice that arguments, cries, excitement are not necessarily linked to a lack of satisfaction: these could characterize “ardent followers” too.

“A Disappointed Lorgnette”: Framing vs. Overflowing

“Framing” and “overflowing” as receptive orientations informing perception profiles could coexist simultaneously, making the experience shareable and at the same time divisive for different fractions of public (in Ranciere’s sense of partage du sensible [Ranciere 2000]).

During debates on new art in Moscow and Petersburg (hosted by Jack of Diamonds on the 12th February 1912 and Union of Youth on the 20thNovember 1912 respectively) Burliuk would deliberately provoke the public by comparing “so-called Raphaels and Leonardos” to “a painted photo” («пресловуты[е] Рафаэл[и] и Леонардо», «цветн[ая] фотографи[я]») [Ростиславов 1912, 5] [Крусанов 1996, 99]. Не even dared say that “a signboard is far more valuable than... the good-for-nothing daub by a Vrubel” («Вывеска ценнее, чем... бездарная мазня какого-нибудь Врубеля») [Ростиславов 1912, 5], [Крусанов 1996, 99]. According to A. Rostislavov, “in the public one could hear loud protests and whistles, and some would defiantly leave the hall” («В публике послышались громкие протесты и свистки, а затем несколько человек демонстративно вышли из зала») [Ростиславов 1912, 5; Крусанов 1996, 100].

The news reporter (along with those leaving the hall) relies on “framing”. A speech act (“a signboard is more valuable than a painting”, “Leonardo’s paintings look like a painted photo”) is contextualized by the frame of a dispute aimed at undermining existing points of view, providing arguments for a more enriching analytical perspective. However, Burliuk ostentatiously breaks the rules of a dispute by resorting to pejorative labels and refusing to provide any argument but an appeal to one’s emotional experience (“that painting is good-for-nothing”). Given into account the violation within the frame of a dispute, the speech act shapes the public response of being shocked, experiencing a feeling of resentment.

At the same time, a contextual “overflowing” of a speech act would be a viable option. Thus, during the Jack of Diamond debates (26th February 1912) A. Kruchenykh would come on stage after Burliuk and tease the public, spurred by the previous speaker (“pick on them”) («для задирки») [Крученых 1996, 45]: “I would chide both the Jack of Diamonds gang and Cubists, then I switched from painting to poetry and sliced and diced all the innovators” («Я бранил и бубнововалетчиков, и кубистов, от живописи перешел к поэзии и здесь разделал под орех всех новаторов») [Крученых 1996, 45].

Kruchenykh imitates the “framing” model. The public would revel in the “excitement” [Крученых 1996, 45] of agreeing with the speaker until

Kruchenykh switched gears putting the speech act into two conflicting contexts. He asked the public concerning the “the eccentricities of the innovators” («чудачества новаторов») [Крученых 1996, 45]: “Who the hell knows what they write, isn’t it? How do you like that image: ‘a disappointed lorgnette’?” (« - He правда ли, они до чертиков дописались? Например, как вам понравится такой образ: “разочарованный лорнет”?») making the public laugh [Крученых 1996, 45]. Then he “exposed the truth” («разоблачил»): “ ‘This is an epithet from Pushkin’s ‘Eugene Onegin’!’. The public’s applauding loudly” (« - Это эпитет из “Евгения Онегина” Пушкина! Публика в аплодисменты») [Крученых 1996, 45].

Here Kruchenykh demonstrates how “overflowing” operates by framing a speech act, “a disappointed lorgnette”, both as a reference to the one-eyed Burliuk, a quote from “new poetry”, and as a fragment of a classic text. While the speech act as a reference clearly provokes and shocks the public, it also attracts their attention. The speech act as a quote from Pushkin, on the other hand, prompts the audience to experience the reading of an old text in a new light, focusing upon an expressive attribute they had never noticed before. That experience unites the speaker and the audience and opens up a perspective of a collaborative interpretative play.

On 24th March 1913 at the Union of Youth debates on new literature, after Burliuk is booed loudly (on the account of saying that “Tolstoy is an old gossip lady”), Kruchenykh takes the floor and gives the speech:

In the British parliament, one speaker would make a statement: “The sun rises in the West”. They didn’t let him finish. Next time, he would take the floor again and say: “The sun rises in the West”; they would interrupt him and ask him to leave. Finally, for the third time, they decided to listen to him, and he had the opportunity to finish the sentence: “The sun rises in the West, as fools and ignorant people say”. You were wrong in not letting Burliuk finish his sentence.

Один оратор в английском парламенте заявил: «Солнце восходит с запада». Ему не дали договорить. На следующим заседании он снова выступил и сказал: «Солнце восходит с запада»; его прервали и выгнали. Наконец в третий раз его решили выслушать, и ему удалось закончить фразу: «Солнце восходит с запада, -так говорят дураки и невежды». Напрасно и вы не дослушали Бурлюка [Крученых 1996,58].

Kruchenykh frames a speech act (“the sun rises in the West”) within a fixed social context and suspends the frame by applying “overflowing”, or putting a speech act into more than one context, revealing poorly compatible interpretations. Within the frame of a speech in the British parliament, a speech act is construed as lacking meaning, as a violation of tacit rules. Within the frame of public not letting the speaker finish (against their better judgment as members of the parliament), a speech act is seen as a ruse, a clever play with the expectations of public. Once the trick is exposed, public is compelled to join the speaker in the play of changing the meaning of a speech act by moving it from one context into another.

The final example of the same trend could be illustrated by a famous legend from the Cubo-Futurist lore. At the first Futurists evening (13th October 1913) Kruchenykh would “spill the tea on the front row” («[В]ыплеснул в первый ряд стакан горячего чаю») [Лившиц 1933, 133] allegedly offending the public and making a scandal. However, in Kruchenykh’s version, the event looks different:

I was given some tea. I finished the tea while the audience was waiting. There was some left... When it was my turn, I took a look around... there was a decoration behind me... Then I read the poem... and spilled the tea leftovers behind my back... But journalists had to “come up” with something... The front row was taken by hussars with their ladies in fine clothing... You could only imagine what would have happened to me, had it been for real.

Мне подали чай. Я его выпил, пока все сидели. Осталось немного на дне. Когда надо было вступать... посмотрел... сзади меня стояла... декорация. Я тогда читаю стихотворение... и при этом выплескиваю чай назад... Но журналистам... нужно было «сочинить» что-нибудь... Впереди в зале сидели гусары с дамами, хорошо одетыми... Можете себе представить, что со мной было бы, если бы я это проделал по-настоящему [Память теперь многое разворачивает 1999, 231; см.: Швец 2020b].

The news reporters were supposed to “frame” the “speech act” of spilling tea leftovers, and they would frame it as a violation of tacit rules of communication. In their view, the norms of a stage performance do not allow the speaker to make such a gesture of breaking a fourth wall. In fact, Kruchenykh destabilizes the sacred space of a stage as a frame by an audacious throw, signaling to the audience that the boundaries between the viewers and the speaker are to be suspended. For a critic, spilling tea anywhere on stage would equal spilling tea on the audience because of the absence of boundaries.

However, a more like-minded recipient would gladly welcome such a move, seeing in it a play with boundaries, not an act of violation. For them, Kruchenykh dismantles the frame of theatre or of a public evening yet frames his gesture by a new context. The context in question is an interactive performance the audience could participate in too. These two contexts overflow, and the boundaries between the speaker and the audience shift enabling for a more participatory behavior.

Coming back to Zdanevich’s escapades, in another letter, Zdanevich’s mother would add: “The other day I read on the Jack of Diamonds debate” [Зданевич 2014, 69] that also was reported to be a public scandal (although not accompanied by a fight) in February 1913 at the Polytechnic Museum. “It’s a charade. Burliuk with his lorgnette... you must be jealous of the success that has come to him” («Вчера же я читала о диспуте на “Бубновом валете”. Безобразный балаган. Бурлюк с лорнеткой... ты, вероятно, завидуешь Бурлюку за тот успех, который выпал на его долю») [Зданевич 2014, 69]. Zdanevich indeed was inspired by speech acts involving a lorgnette, and used an American shoe as an equivalent in March 1913. His mother would disagree, but in order to interpret that family quarrel one hundred years later and justify the poet, we had to put it in a wider context and show that it was not only about a scandal per se.

Signboards, Posters: The Show Must Go On

“Disappointed lorgnettes”, American shoes, signboards (all being omnipresent features of modernity) were allegedly used by Zdanevich and Cubo-Futurists to shock the public as parts of provocative speech acts. Beneath that aspiration was an urge to broadcast their aesthetic performance and attract excessive attention of “news reporters”, to gain a wider readership. That effect was supposed to be followed by a close collaboration-play between the author and the recipient as a co-creator.

The pragmatic impact could be achieved by enticing the public to deploy two strategies of interpretation: “framing” and “overflowing”. Whereas “framing” would present shoes and lorgnettes (as parts of speech acts) as an offense to the public taste, “overflowing” would place these speech acts in various contexts and enable the audience to see a broader palette of possible improvisable interpretations.

What about signboards? They have been deployed as a print format by Cubo-Futurists so as to transfer a live performance into the realm of virtual communication between the author and the reader, a case in point being Vasily Kamensky’s “Tango with Cows” (1915). The book opens with a real poster announcing that “The First Journal of the Russian Futurists” came out, and both the cover of the book and the poems (so-called ferroconcrete poems [Janecek 1984]) replicate the poster format in their visual outlook. Turning a poetry collection into a poster collection was a necessary move to ensure that the show would go on.

On a poster, a visual layout strikes the eye: “came out”, “the journal”, “1 -2”, “futurists” («вылетел», «журнал», «1-2», «футуристов») are in bold, being thus fronted as key points. Other words also possess bold emphasis although being lesser in size (these are the names of the editors). As a consequence, the poster attracts the attention and highlights the essential information, allegedly yielding a non-ambiguous reading firmly entrenched in a stable context of graphic accents.

The word “futurists” is printed both vertically and horizontally, with «Ф», «Р» printed horizontally, «уту», «ист» vertically, «ов» rotated 90 0 to the left. As a result, the word reminds a matrix of letters to be read in several possible ways at once, enabling the reader to construct new words and new readings. The same strategy of turning a word into a square letter matrix is applied in the bottom of the poster, where we see the title of Kamensky’s novel (“The Mud Hut”, «Землянка»), The title of the novel could be read in many directions simultaneously due to the letters being printed vertically, horizontally, with some of them

rotated. Eventually, the reader could base an open series of new words on that title. Or, the reader projects onto the word a series of contexts.

The letter matrix constructions on the poster destabilize the reading model based on graphic accents highlighting the relevant information. On the contrary, these constructions pave the way for multiple interpretations, affording a new model of reading. Accents do not illuminate key points yet become gateways for a readerly improvisation.

The same communicative strategy of using letter matrix as a device is manifested by the cover of the book. Both the name of the author and the title of the book are printed in squares. We observe the same visual cacophony of horizontal and vertical lines. As one researcher pointed out, “a text printed in that way cannot be glossed over fluently... the device in question heightens the readerly attention and leads to an intense investment in a book on the part of the reader” («Набранный таким образом текст нельзя читать и воспринимать автоматически бегло... прием безотказно провоцирует обострение внимания и возникновение неравнодушного эмоционального контакта между текстом и читающим») [Стригалев 1990, 515]. The device slows down the reader, introducing the ambiguity of possible interpretations.

As a result, from the very outset the book “Tango with Cows” offers two conflicting reading models: (1) on the one hand, eliciting a meaning out of a fixed context relying on clear graphic accents, (2) on the other hand, being exposed to a wide range of possible meanings due to the fact that a letter matrix could be read in several contexts at the same time. As a result of that, the Futurist book displays conflicting orientations. It both advertises its poetry to a mass public and enables each reader to become one of the selected few, completing the text. “Framing” and “overflowing” co-exist and contradict each other on the pages of the book, each targeting a different type of reader, a book-skimmer and an active co-author. That way, the Futurist show continues, albeit vicariously, in a book format, opening up not a small, but a significantly novel “piece of land in a literary terrain”.