Media art, despite its innovation and technology, has deep roots in the past century. Avant-garde artists of the beginning of the century dreamed of synthetic works that would harmoniously combine different genres and forms of art; the first technological experiments were conducted in the 1920–1930s, and in the second half of the 20th century, with the development of cybernetics and electronics, this pursuit reached a fundamentally new level, establishing foundations for practically all directions of today's media art: algorithmic and generative art, sound art and computer graphics, light installations and performative practices, bioart and coding. Media artists inevitably master new tools at each stage, creating new representations of time and space they live in through new forms.

Our exhibition tells the story of how new media have been explored in Kazan since the 1960s and why this local experience is important for understanding general trends in the development of media art.

The second point to mention is the presence of an ideological leader, a generator of ideas, a talented scientist, engineer, and artist Bulat Mahmudovich Galeev (1940–2009), who had been leading the team for half a century and was the author of almost all significant works. The third important component was a deep comprehension of the theory of new art, familiarity with the works of predecessors and contemporaries, knowledge of context, and a clear understanding of the tasks. Thematic conferences (since 2010 named 'Galeev Readings') have been held since 1967, bringing together researchers of art synthesis and synesthesia, technological and audiovisual art. The fourth important feature of this local history was that Galeev and his team were constantly experimenting in different directions (abstract cinema and dynamic architectural lighting, light concerts and programs for relaxation rooms, designer lighting fixtures and video installations, computer graphics and spatial music), achieving impressive success in the public sphere and making the new technological language of media art more comprehensible for the viewer.

It was the practical implementation within a technical university (patents, publications, conferences, exhibitions, economic contracts) that allowed this group of enthusiasts obsessed with new art to implement the most ambitious ideas in the field of experimental aesthetics during the Soviet time and Perestroika years, ignoring the dogmas and prohibitions of Socialist Realism, maintaining contacts with colleagues from all over the country and from abroad, and participating in international projects. At the state level in Russia and the post-Soviet space the media art was not recognized until the end of the 1990s, so the richest heritage of the XX century has not yet become a basis for reconsideration by young artists.

The extensive documentary archive that had been collected at 'Prometheus' for 60 years, containing slides, photographs, and video materials, magazines, and books, printed and manuscript publications, reflects the history of technological experiments worldwide, which means that there are still many unexplored gaps and local fragments in this common history that are to come together in a bright, original palette of media art in each region in the future.

The questions of identity, creative economy, and technological challenges that are crucial for the cultural context of Kazakhstan overlap with Galeev's search for national roots. Perhaps this search, presented specifically for Almaty, will help the modern viewer to engage aesthetically with the current socio-cultural agenda and find their own media that are emotionally resonating here and now.

trcman is a research group that specializes in intellectual history and media history. The geography of our research interests stretches beyond conventional national and geopolitical boundaries and includes Central and Northern Asia, the Volga region and the Urals, the Caucasus, and the Crimean Peninsula. By turning to the heritage of these regions, we focus on criticizing the narratives of modernity. Trcman is pronounced as terjiman and refers to the name of a Turkic-language newspaper that was published in Bakhchysarai (Crimea) in the late XIX–early XX century. Terciman means translator, so the key subjects of our research are languages, discourse analysis, and different theoretical approaches of translation.