(k)not club
Alexandra Perevalova
Polina Shurupova
Georgy Shvedenko
(k)not club is an imaginary institution — it conceals a network of people interested in critical approaches to space who felt lost and alone in their attempt to do something. It was created as a sort of cloud castle — to gain some power in the world of real institutions and explore new ways of solidarization. Currently, it involves around 90 researchers, academics, artists, architects, designers, students (…) who create various online and offline projects with different levels of autonomy — e.g. online and offline seminars, interventions, translations, research, etc.
Many of (k)not club members are from Russia — it was created in 2024 by members of FENCHES movement (rus. забейки\3abeiki), who have been collectively performing urban interventions in Russian and European cities, sometimes gathering 30+ people to drift, build and reclaim. Now many of the members have left Russia and reside in various cities and countries.
(k)not club was presented on WARNING THE CITY/ZENS conference organized by CISR e.V. Berlin, where we participated in the discussion "Non-formal Education in Cities as a Solidarity Practice".
Architecture and the urban mainstream; market and corporate excuses; educational conformism; the inflexibility of expertise and political emptiness – “common sense” should step down from the pedestal to its scaffold.
(k)not club is
1) anti-expertise agency – one having no competencies, yet ready to (re)claim and overturn “competencies” conquered by others – to do whatever.
2) urban distro – one looking for and distributing alternative forms of urban (un)knowledge – to shift the focus from the typical and bring it to the counter-acceptable, from dictatorial media to provocation.
3) self-made university – a collective neoplasm in the urban region/area/realm/<...>/district/cavity/zone – made by those who are lacking it. We unite and decide what, when and how to study.
4) research and praxis epicenters – a hotbed of hypotheses, speculation, intention, interpretation, revelation, action, and maneuvers. We do not accept institutional boredom, academic formality, and scientific inevitability, yet we keep the ambition of sincere knowledge.
5) Gonzo-translation gang that works with texts as it can.
The (k)not club conducts meetings, laboratories, research, investigations, translations, manuals for non-compliance, calls for neglect, street provocations, co-actions, situational interactions and so on, and so off.
The (k)not club is yet another horizontal anti-capitalist project. we do not repeat forms of media, bureaus, consultings and universities, but are ready to mimic them all.
Some knots of the club are already tightened, and some are in current development. Such as:
1) k-not—borders — an online self-led seminar tackling various forms of borders/boundaries/thresholds/limits/seams/etc and their dismantling/breakage/poking/disappearance/non-existence/etc.
2) ŠUMA — Beograd based spatial intervention practice working with noise. Produces instruments and uses them.
3) aca(b)demic drawing
4) dialectics of reuse