The Everythingists, Es Devlin

According to artist Es Devlin ‘The Firebird is a story about human hubris in relation to technology…we seek to capture the mythic bird always out of reach, we keep living in the future tense…yet life is only ever available in the present.’  

The term ‘Everythingism’, (Vsechestvo in Russian) was coined to describe artist Natalia Goncharova’s work across painting, theatre design, fashion and performance art: it could equally be used to describe Es Devlin’s wide ranging practice.  

Es Devlin has conceived ‘The Everythingists’ as a sculptural drawing in dialogue with Goncharova’s painted backdrop made for Diaghilev’s 1926 Ballet Russes production of  The Firebird, choreographed by Mikhail Fokine and composed by Igor Stravinsky in 1910.  

Devlin has made drawings in charcoal and paint of East London-based dancer Joshua Shanny-Wynter on illuminated ply wood cut outs. Shanny-Wynter’s movements were choreographed by East London based choreographer Botis Seva, contorting between suspended rectilinear forms resembling enlarged iPhone and iPad packaging boxes and split oval masks, echoing the storage crates used throughout V&A East Storehouse.  

Every 90 seconds the artwork is animated by illumination and underscored by Devlin’s voice reading a series of texts over a soundtrack composed by Polyphonia. The composition is rooted in the horn solo from the finale of Igor Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite. The finale horn theme was conceived by Stravinsky to signify the lifting of the sorcerer Koschei’s curse, the return of light and life, transcendence after chaos. It was based on a traditional folk song found in a collection by Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov.  

Devlin reads extracts from Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larinov’s techno-optimistic 1913 ‘Rayonist Manifesto’, Cory Doctorow’s 2026 reflections on centaurs and reverse-centaurs in animatronics, Centaur’s Requiem (2003) by American poet Adrienne Rich and The Centaur (1958) by American science fiction writer and poet Clark Ashton Smith. The work responds to the aspirations for technology expressed in Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larinov’s 1913 ‘Rayonist Manifesto’, and draws on science fiction writer Cory Doctorow’s distinction between centaurs (humans empowered by machines), and reverse-centaurs (machines empowered by humans).

Fabrication by Scena
Sound by Polyphonia
With special thanks to the V&A East Collective Community for their generous feedback