User:Eugenie Absalom/Sandbox1

Sandbox for Acoustic Graffiti

Oleg Lapidus (born November 27, 1970), known as the Pianocrasher or Acoustic Graffitist, is a contemporary artist, professional musician and a founder of a new creative trend called Acoustic Graffiti. Pianocrasher's landmark performance of a traditional Irish tune on his flute in the House of Commons of the Palace of Westminster in October 2008 confirmed the existence of a new kind of art. 

"I use the sound graph of the final notes of my performances when creating my art works. These sounds reflect the state of mind of an individual facing the dilemma: to keep playing music or to quit. It is an allegory of everyday life where people have to make choices under pressure. It first of all refers to new creative initiatives that face misunderstanding and often fall under attack at the start. They can only survive if the artist persists." Oleg Lapidus Mixed media: Acoustic Graffiti Arts exist between video recordings, photography, installations and art works based on video captures and visual interpretation of the sound graphs of the pianocrashes finale.

Acoustic Graffiti is a creative collaboration between artist Oleg Lapidus and video operator Eugenie Absalom, who's video captures are the basis for Acoustic Graffiti art works.

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Pianocrasher
The "Pianocrasher" title refers to Italian "piano" - meaning "soft" and can be interpreted as "breaking silence." Versatile musician, Oleg Lapidus is a virtuoso clarinetist and saxophonist, pianist, flutist and a music teacher. For this reason his "pianocrashes" involve not only actual piano performances, but also flute, sax and clarinet.

"Pianocrashes" by Oleg Lapidus include the lobby of the iconic buildings on the South Bank - Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Royal National Theatre, Ronny Scotts jazz club, a number of top London hotels, like The Dorchester and Grosvenor House in Park Lane, historic Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair and The Ritz as well as restaurants such as JUST St. James's in St. James's.

During one of his most extreme crashes he was performing James Bond theme on sax in front the MI6 building - home of the legendary Ian Fleming's hero.

In October 2008 "Pianocrasher" played a traditional Irish tune on his flute in the House of Commons of the Palace of Westminster. This landmark performance confirmed the existence of the new kind of art - Acoustic Graffiti. 

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Pianocrasher and Street Pianos 09
Luke Jerram's "Play Me I'm Yours" street piano initiative comes as a reaction of a creative individual to the general rule, prohibiting anyone to play music in public places without special arrangement - no matter how skilful you are at playing your piano or how popular your music is with the audience. Any musician would have been stopped immediately by security outside the City of London and Sing London festival.

Camden based artist and professional musician Oleg Lapidus, aka the Pianocrasher proved the point more than once by playing music unexpectedly in public areas and being stopped by security. 

In 2008 he turned society's unacceptance of impromtu music performaces into a provocative creative trend, called Acoustic Graffiti Arts: video recordings of his own music performances and his visual art works, based on music stopped by security.

Both projects: street pianos and acoustic graffiti arts share the same artistic vision - they encourage general public to create freely and to use public space as their playground.

Mr Lapidus considers "Play Me I'm Yours" project as a variation of his own Acoustic Graffiti concept and a manisfestation of Prohibitivism. It lets people use their creative abilities at places where they normally wouldn't have any chance to.

--Eugenie Absalom (talk) 14:17, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

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