1597 Seconds 

1597 Seconds is a performative role play game by artist Arseny
Zhilyaev and game designer and dramaturge Asya Volodina,
where you as a visitor have the opportunity to participate.

The Institute for Mastering of Time in the role-playing game 1597
Seconds is an organisation operating in an undefined future.
The institute’s aim is to achieve immortality for all organised
creations of the universe. With the aim of reaching eternal life,
the institute is dedicated to the cause of “optimizing the time
continuum” and its disciples practice controlling time.

The Institute also seeks to decentralize the human subject
position. In order to do so, the disciple must submit to a
transformation. This starts with the process of learning to feel
as organised matter of any kind. The better a person is able to
think of themselves as a thing, the easier it will be for them to
deal with their own time optimisation. Since the human brain
can keep up intense activity for circa 26 minutes (or 1,597
seconds) at a time, this is a good amount of time for beginners to
work with.

Limited number of seats. Register 

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Asya Volodina (b. 1983, Moscow) is a game designer, artist, and playwright. She co-authored the promenade-theatre show Normansk at Meyerhold Centre in Moscow, 2014. She has been a member of art collectives, Ladder to the Sky, Room 18, and Live Action Theatre among other groups. Since 2017, she has collaborated with artist Arseny Zhilyaev on role-play games. She lives and works in Moscow.

Arseny Zhilyaev (b. 1984, Voronezh) is an artist based in Moscow and Venice. His projects examine the legacy of Soviet museology and museum in the philosophy of Russian Cosmism using the exhibition as a medium. Artist’s works have been shown at the biennales in Gwangju, Liverpool, Lyon and the Ljubljana Triennale as well as at exhibitions at Centre Pompidou, Palais de Tokyo, Paris; de Appel, Amsterdam; HKW, Berlin; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris and San Francisco. Zhilyaev graduated from Voronezh State University, Philosophical Faculty (2006); and MA International Programs, Valand School of Fine Arts, Goteborg, Sweden (2010). The artist has lectured and conducted master classes at MoMA, Brooklyn Museum, CUNY (New York), Tate Modern, Whitechapel (London), Princeton University (New Jersey), and others. He publishes articles in e-flux journal, Idea, Moscow Art Magazine, and others. Zhilyaev is an editor of an anthology Avant-Garde Museology (e-flux, University of Minnesota Press, V-a-c Press, 2015) and co-founder of Moscow Center for Experimental Museology.