NOTES, COMMENT AND BUZZ FROM EUGENE KASPERSKY – OFFICIAL BLOG
April 11, 2017
Since there are no white, brown, or other bears in Antarctica – and for a short time just one green bear – I can’t tell you about such fearsome beasts. But it’s not all bad; for I can tell you about penguins, of which there are zillions here along the Antarctic shores. Check them out:
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April 10, 2017
Modern art. It’s a tricky one. It’s divisive. It’s polarizing. It can be ‘just too much’ for many – too avant garde, too unsettling; while for others it’s a natural, permanently fluctuating expression of the creative human spirit – in all its wildest, freshest imaginings. Nikita Khrushchev was firmly in the former ‘eh?’ camp, famously ranting, swearing like a trooper, pointing, shaking fists and assuring that his ‘grandchild could do better than this’ his when he visited a modern art exhibition in Moscow in 1962. But that was Khrushchev.
What I think the USSR General Secretary didn’t quite get was that modern art shouldn’t be taken at face value. Ok, let me try explain what I mean using a technique I’m very familiar and at-home with – mathematical induction. It shows me how many long-dead artists who are today renowned as geniuses often died poor or in disgrace. Only later – after prejudices of the day fade and the true merit of a daring modern artist becomes more and more widely recognized – only then does the man-in-the-street ‘get’ him. Only then does that same man-in-the-street realize his kind were responsible not only of tormenting an individual, but also a genius author who had contributed greatly to redirecting entrenched ways of seeing the world – aka, ‘world culture’ – toward new horizons.
Creativity is something eternal; it’s always been with us, and always will be. Just look at the walls of Neolithic caves covered with etchings. [Lengthy story that should/could be here – omitted for brevity’s sake.] Well that eternal flame of creativity is still going strong today – particularly here, on this here ship I’m writing this from. For here we have a group of contemporary artists of various genres and styles – and cultures – doing the modern kunst thing as they see fit – be it with installations or performances or whatever. I have to admit that I – like the above-mentioned man-in-the-street – don’t ‘get’ it all. But that doesn’t matter! Much like wise advice has always said that reading a book you don’t fully understand can never be a bad thing – not fully understanding modern art but still engaging with it is also no bad thing. For I really do respect modern art, in all its progressively perplexing ways. But you will have guessed that by now – what with us not only sponsoring the Antarctic Biennale, but with me personally taking part in it too…
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I write this from somewhere in Drake Passage, heading down to Antarctica with brave artists, installationists and performers, who over the next several days will be fully submerged in an Antarctic all-inclusive experience that’s never been done before.
All righty. I write this now after a few days of the expedition, and already a pattern has formed of what we do of a day here:
Every morning – and if possible, also every evening – the whole creative collective disembarks from the Vavilov onto an Antarctic island or mainland bit of Antarctica. They take with them earlier prepared installations, put on performances, arrange photo-exhibitions, and in plenty of other ways complicate their lives right there on the ice and snow.
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April 4, 2017
Hi folks!
It’s been a while, I know. However, I’ve a fairly good excuse: Antarctic comms leave a lot to be desired, and it’s there where I’ve been the last ~two weeks!…
Quick rewind…: If you can remember that far back, my latest spot of continent-hopping had gone like this so far: Jersey – Saint-Michel – Paris. Well, next up wasn’t in Europe, but in South America: the city of Ushuaia in southern Argentina.
This city fascinated us. Actually, not the city itself – though it is perfectly ok; it was the skies there that blew us away. Some kinda crazy hurricanic-typhonic steel-colored uniqueness. Seriously southern, seriously stunning. Perfectly fitting for the world’s most southern city…
March 3, 2017
Some of you may be wondering what we were doing on Antarctica in 2009, and how exactly we could claim it was a business trip. So let me tell you…
We unintentionally (and that’s a whole story of its own) became the main sponsor of an all-woman skiing expedition to the South Pole. Now, some time before the expedition itself, some colleagues and I were in Singapore. One evening in a restaurant we all admitted we were rather worried for the ladies on the 40-day (forty-day!) ski across the most inhospitable land on the planet. And that’s when we had a eureka! moment: “Why don’t we go too?!” Ok – not on skis, but to at least be there at the finish to meet and greet and celebrate with the intrepid adventurers. And that’s just what we ended up doing. Then we figured such an ambitiously adventurous jaunt would be interesting not only for us but also for the press – so we invited journalists along too!
So. There was me. There was our then-APAC-director, Harry Cheung (who was the main organizer of the project). There was Aleks Gostev (one of our top experts on cyberthreats, interviewee-extraordinaire, plus a mandatory member of any exotic expedition involving mountains or glaciers or both). Then there were three journalists – two with video cameras, the other – a professional photographer: Alexander Blotnitsky (France Press), Marina Ten (Associated Press), and Denis Davydov (Izvestiya).
We landed at the South Pole at precisely midnight (Moscow time) – on New Year’s Eve! Oh my glacier! New Year’s Eves don’t come more memorable than that :).
March 1, 2017
While making preparations for my upcoming creative Antarctic expedition I started to recollect my previous trip to the sixth continent, so had a delve into my photo-archive thereof. Ahhhhh, the nostalgia: I was reminded of how it was one of the most… OMG/ unforgettable/ outstanding adventures of my life; but, then, it would be. How could a trip to the South Pole itself not be? What’s more – a business trip there!!!
I took that many photos, and wrote that many words describing my polar adventure, that eventually a whole photo-travelogue book was published, an electronic version of which can still be downloaded from my blog (along with other books penned by me).
What you might not know is that practically anyone in good health and with sufficient (minimal) training can go to the South Pole. Ok, it will cost you quite a bit – say, that same as you’d pay for a brand new large Mercedes – but, well, extreme tourism always costs a lot more than beach holidays. So if you fancy it – get in touch with the company ALE, and off you pop (between November and February every year).
So how does it all happen – getting to the South Pole?
February 27, 2017
Hi all!
As you already know, we’re off to Antarctica! And it’s no ordinary trip to Antarctica – if there can be such a thing – but a very extraordinary one, with an extraordinarily creative international delegation of modern-art adepts aboard the Akademik Sergey Vavilov research vessel; route: Ushuaia – Marguerite Bay and back.
The Antarctic Biennale line-up will consist of 17 multidisciplinary artists; among them: Zhang Enli (China), Tomas Saraceno (Argentina), Joaquin Fargas (Argentina), Gustav Duesing (Germany), Yto Barrada (Morocco), Julius von Bismarck (Germany) and Julian Charriere (France/Switzerland). There are others too, but I don’t know their names yet. This multinational modern-art contingent was put together by the maestro of modern art, installations and performances, Alexander Ponomarev. Here are some of the latter’s works, btw:
So, led by the maestro, the artists will board the ship and for a week create some contemporary, unforgettable and fundamental modern art; then they’ll install their fresh masterpieces on the sixth continent. Yeah, that’s the plan.
February 22, 2017
Ferrari and F-1, all-women skiing expeditions to the South Pole, snooker, archaeological digs of ancient Minoan ruins, chess, and a lot of other stuff. I think the word is eclectic for all that lot. And for those at the back not listening – this eclectic selection is what we sponsor, support, help, assist, admire, and are proud of! But something was missing. Something that would make it even more diversified. We needed to add an ingredient of a perfectly… perpendicular nature – perpendicular to that lot (is that even possible?). So that’s just what we did: we added… modern art to the mix!
Drum roll……………………….. crash cymbal! We have another announcement!
We’re taking part in a project of the most unusual and original kind (drum roll still going, getting louder – just like pulses and breathing!). Like I say, it’s about modern art. But not simply ‘modern’, and not simply ‘art’; add to it the following, and that’s what we got!: a ship (research-vessel), the ocean, and Antarctica! It all adds up to the must uniquely uncommon project in the world in the field of modern art – the Antarctic Biennale!
The essence of the project is as follows: artists from all around the world take long flights to Ushuaia in southern Argentina. There they’ll board a ship and sail to Antarctica, all the while intensively gaining inspiration and creating. The floating creative laboratory, exhibition deck, and ocean-faring platform for dialog will be the Akademik Sergey Vavilov research vessel. And it’s going to happen in the second half of March of this year!
And the project was officially announced last Saturday evening in Room 15 (the Italian Courtyard) of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.
September 9, 2015
Hola amigos!
Not long ago I flew one of the most unusual commercial air routes I’ve ever taken.
It was the Santiago–Sydney-route on Qantas QF28 in a Boeing 747. The route forms a smile shape as it curves downwards and flies past… Antarctica! It felt a bit eerie flying – for 14 hours! – over a part of the world where there happens to be absolutely nothing at all! No islands, no ships, no folks, no hamburger stands… the very definition of ‘godforsaken’! Even submarines don’t bother with these remote southern reaches. Curiously, there’s one thing that features relatively prominently here: deceased satellites! They have them fall out of orbit and give them a marine burial here, well out of the way so they do no harm to Homo sapiens.
“Cheese!”
February 25, 2014
Greetings all!
Punta Arenas – Sandy Point in English – is right at the very bottom end of Chile. It’s on a bank of the Strait of Magellan, across from the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. In other words, quite literally, the middle of nowhere. Unless, one day, you might fancy flying down to Antarctica… then it’d be where you’d want to be in the middle of, as flights down there leave from here. Actually, you’d need to be a little to the south of Punta Arenas, not in the middle of it, but that wouldn’t have given me the pseudo-witty play on words.
