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The 1922 ‘Symphony of Sirens’ in Baku, Azerbaijan

In 1922, a ‘Symphony of Sirens’ was performed by the sounds and movements of human crowds, machine guns, cannons, factory sirens, airplanes, hydroplanes, trains, battleships and a steam-whistle machine across the spaces of Baku, Azerbaijan. Conceived well beyond the conventions of revolutionary festivals, the Symphony manifested 1920s avant-garde aspirations for a radical unity of the arts, technology and urban space. Furthermore, the location of the Symphony was notable: Baku was a city on the edge of the former Russian empire, and Azerbaijan had only two years prior been incorporated as a Soviet Socialist Republic. Connecting with several core tenets of the Soviet socialist and avant-garde movements, the 1922 ‘Symphony of Sirens’ can be interpreted as an avant-garde expansion of Soviet internationalism. The ways in which the Azerbaijani metropolis activated this bricolage of art, space and politics is significant, not least because the spectacle condensed a wide range of practices and ideas from Taylorism, proletarian politics, the artistic avant-garde and Azerbaijani culture. The spectacle's composition and location also had an outward impact, manifesting a geographical imagination that shaped the region's cultural and political identity and extended the possibilities of design practice.