Sometimes you want the vague: an idea that's barely clear to you flies into someone's "thinking tool" in one breath and stays there, like it's always been theirs, finding its own place without help. Sometimes you want the concrete: you get the idea, but others need it presented beautifully. And remembered. And felt deeply. And respected. And then they bring you money. Two bills! This time, I wanted one of these two ideas — either mixed together or in sequence — delivered to the viewer by Ira. Not a "talking head," but a character with bold irony and her own gestures, which have memory and meaning.
Ten seconds of painfully refreshing blankness. Who is she to me, this Ira? Why did I imagine her this way? Ah... I remembered...
The first attempt sounded right but looked empty: the voice was there, the meaning was there, but the vibe wasn't. Her hands didn't know where to be — like an actor who memorized the lines but didn't understand why his character showed up on screen. It was funny to watch how the familiar "producer" gestures (measure, point, emphasize) turned Ira into a newsreader, and a newsreader she made — with that dangling tassel on her graduation cap — was lousy. Then the iterations began. First — Ira goes silent. I speak silently instead of her. If you know what I mean. Ten seconds of painfully refreshing blankness. Who is she to me, this Ira? Why did I imagine her this way? Ah... I remembered...
The phrase changed. Try this gesture. Yeah, the thought clicked into place, like a puzzle piece. What about a different gesture? Nope, something's off with that one. Stare at it some more. Stared. Again: phrase, gesture, stare... A hundred times. Changing the sequence of actions.
Then the voice "arrived." Not louder — deeper. Not "explain," but "dip them into the obvious." Ira lowers her tone slightly, and a sly confidence emerges — the confidence of someone who's amused that they understand the topic inside out, while the one they're "dipping" doesn't. It was no longer a lecture, but gentle mockery. But the intonation was trying to "seduce" the meaning instead of holding it. I had to clean the friendly smile from the voice and leave only the irony — like a scar you don't hide.
Next — rhythm. Usually, in sixty seconds there's no room for rush. But there's also no room for machine-gun chatter. If the rush arrived — Ira died. So I broke phrases in half, tossed out the ones that crackled louder than meaning, invented new ones. God, how many meanings can fit in one short phrase — just let your imagination loose! As a result, a paragraph shrank to one line, when I simply started to hate thinking about this idea!
And finally, the idea stopped glancing at the clock.
Ira's hands didn't find their movement right away. Any "generated" gesture turned the thought into an ad. Or a socialite's gesticulations. Or vulgarity.
It's an unusual feeling that Ira "sees" the gaze, even when nobody's in the frame...
Some kind of mysticism. Fuck!
I had to remember that a gesture isn't decoration — it's a verb. Ira's slight mechanical quality makes her gestures look like she's shifting an invisible plane in front of her — not a "board," but a boundary of attention. First toward the viewer, then back to herself. This microscopic "pendulum" pulls the phrase into focus. With it, the words stopped "spilling out" like sand off a table. In short, gestures suit her like clothes suit a fashionista. Or like oats suit a horse.
And then — pauses. A pause doesn't stay silent; it holds the door wide open. Too much pause — and the viewer leaves. Too little — and the thought doesn't have time to take root. A simple thing helped here: count not seconds, but the gaze. As long as the gaze holds — the pause is alive. The moment the eyes wander — it's time to move on. It's an unusual feeling that Ira "sees" the gaze, even when nobody's in the frame...
Some kind of mysticism. Fuck!
When everything clicked, the text turned out ridiculously short: one statement, one comparison, one image, one gesture. No metaphors that love themselves more than meaning. No "today we'll talk about." No "imagine this." The thought had to sound like it always existed — someone just finally cleared the junk off it.
The final recording took 57 seconds. Yes, longer than I wanted. But cutting more meant cutting Ira. And the character resists worse than any KPIs.
And that's right. The most interesting moment in this work is when you realize: you don't dictate the time of the role; the role dictates the time of the thought.
Or the other way around. I still don't get it. But fuck, it works! Insane. Did I make this, or did she do it herself?
IRA Explains to a Schoolkid in 57 Seconds What BLOCKCHAIN Is
Ira knows how to become a midwife to meaning: not to push, not to pull, but to hold out a hand at the right moment.
Or a basin
The most honest thing here isn't the technique (there's plenty of it, and it's visible) — it's repeatability. Tomorrow Ira will say the same thought differently, but with the same character. The same gestures, the same tone, the same irony that doesn't belittle the topic but blows yesterday's thoughts off it.
A character isn't a "playback function" — it's the habit of meaning living a certain way. God, what am I even saying — who knows?
Some ideas (or maybe all of them? I don't know, I'm not a philosopher) are better birthed than proven. Ira knows how to become a midwife to meaning: not to push, not to pull, but to hold out a hand at the right moment.
Or a basin.
That's why she needs all these hundred attempts — not to "turn out well," but to stop thinking about it. When it stops, a minute is suddenly enough for an entire audience.
There are no conclusions here, no "how to replicate this yourself." If you really need to — you can rewatch the recording and find all the technical crutches and rough edges. But what matters more is this: Ira isn't a tool; she's a character. She's the content of what you put into her from yourself.
She explains not because it's an "educational format," but because her "internal honesty" is built that way — it mirrors yours.
And that's the only thing a viewer recognizes instantly and accepts without proof. 57 seconds don't live on a timer — they live in the personality of the person who fits Ira to their intention, like an avatar.
