Curupira: Creature of the Woods / Fevers

Prague premieres: Program
Curupira: Creature of the Woods / Curupira, bicho do mato
France, 2018, 35 min, DCP
Sound by / directed / produced by Félix Blume
Fevers / Fiebres
France, 2013, 45 min, DCP
Directed by Adrien Lecouturier
Sound Recording: Félix Blume
Production: Zaradoc / Les Films Nus

Félix Blume, French sound artist and sound engineer, will personally introduce his latest film Curupira: Creature of the Woods, which will be screened together with a film by Adrien Lecouturier, Fevers, to which Blume contributed sound recordings. You can find the curupira deep in the heart of the Amazon, where Tauary natives invite us to listen to the sounds of the jungle, the birds, and animals. However, some weird sounds appear: a creature prowling around the trees. Some have heard her, very few have ever seen her, and those who did find her never came back. She charms, she enchants — she leads people to get lost: each of one of them tells a story in their own way and tries to understand her sounds. Curupira, creature of the woods takes us in search of this being: a reflection about myths and their place in the contemporary world. It’s a sound thriller in the midst of the jungle.

ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴀʀᴛɪᴄʟᴇ …
čᴇsᴋʏ …

Taste of Cement

Directed by Ziad Kalthoum
Produced by Ansgar Frerich, Eva Kemme, and Tobias Siebert
Written by Ziad Kalthoum
Cinematography: Talal Khoury
Lebanon/Germany/Syria/Qatar/UAE, 2017, 85 min.
In Arabic with English subtitles

In Beirut, Syrian construction workers are building a skyscraper while at the same time their own houses at home are being shelled. The Lebanese war is over but the Syrian one still rages on. The workers are locked in the building site. They are not allowed to leave it after 19.00. The Lebanese government has imposed night-time curfews on the refugees. The only contact with the outside world for these Syrian workers is the hole through which they climb out in the morning to begin a new day of work. Cut off from their homeland, they gather at night around a small TV set to get the news from Syria. Tormented by anguish and anxiety, while suffering the deprivation of the most basic human and workers right, they keep hoping for a different life.

ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴀʀᴛɪᴄʟᴇ …
čᴇsᴋʏ …

Lee Patterson: Terrain

Lee Patterson (b.1971) is a British musician, sound artist and maker of experimental musical instruments. He lives and works in Prestwich, Manchester. He creates the amplified devices and processes with which he performs through the use of sound recording as a form of ear training. Whether working live with amplification or recording within an environment, Patterson has pioneered a range of methods to produce or uncover complex sounds in unexpected places. Using elements as diverse as chalk, springs, burning nuts, aquatic plants and insects, he eavesdrops upon these objects and situations otherwise considered mute, playing them as if they were musical instruments.

Lee Patterson’s first concert in Prague is organized by Lom instruments (Bratislava), Galerie hlavního města Prahy and the Agosto Foundation.

Patterson will also perform with Ivan Palacký at Dům umění města Brna (Brno House of Arts) on March 28, 2019 at 7 PM.

These performances take place as part of the upcoming exhibition project Zvuky Kódy Obrazy: Akustický experiment ve vizuálním umění (Sounds Codes Images: Acoustic Experimentation in the Visual Arts) which will open in June at Prague City Gallery – House at the Stone Bell. The accompanying program is organized in collaboration with the Agosto Foundation.

ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴀʀᴛɪᴄʟᴇ …
čᴇsᴋʏ …

Call for Nominations 2019

As part of its grant program Perpedes, the Agosto Foundation is requesting nominations from the general public for the support of the activities of individual artists, as well as for artistic or cultural projects. The Perpedes grant program fosters a closer connection between artistic and cultural activities, and the daily lives of various social strata and communities, on both the local and regional scale. The program focuses on strengthening smaller individual and civic initiatives which intersect or interact with interdisciplinary cooperation, and which address themes pertaining to social and environmental networks working within the framework of contemporary art. Nominations will be accepted until April 30, 2019. The grants will be conferred based on the agreed upon time schedule, with the availability funds lasting until the end of 2019.

ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴀʀᴛɪᴄʟᴇ …
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Jitka and Květa Válová Receive Title

The painter twins Jitka and Květa Válová are unique on the Czech and the world scene. They belong among the most significant Czech artists of their generation, and at the same time, they have stood outside the trends of their time. Now these two sisters from Kladno are to be awarded the title Dames of Czech Culture. The posthumous honor is given by the minister of culture, Antonín Staněk, as part of the 13th annual international festival Mene Tekel. A medal with an emblem for painting is to be accepted on 24 February, 2019, by Marie Vydrová, representing the Válová family.

ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴀʀᴛɪᴄʟᴇ …
čᴇsᴋʏ …

Arcadia

Directed by Paul Wright
Music by Will Gregory and Adrain Utley
Producers: Hopscotch Films
UK, 2017, 78 min.
English

Scouring 100 years of archive footage, BAFTA-winner Paul Wright constructs an exhilarating study of the British people’s shifting – and contradictory – relationship to the land. The film goes on a sensory, visceral journey through the contrasting seasons, taking in folk carnivals and fetes, masked parades, water divining and harvesting. Set to a grand, expressive new score from Adrian Utley (Portishead) and Will Gregory (Goldfrapp) alongside folk music from the likes of Anne Briggs, Wright’s captivating film essay captures the beauty and brutality, and the magic and madness of rural Britain.

ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴀʀᴛɪᴄʟᴇ …
čᴇsᴋʏ …

Hodiny (Clock): sound space performance

Martin Marek, Jan Kromholz, Iva Polanecká, Polina Khatsenka, Matěj Šenkyřík

Video from a concert which took place during the symposium Architecture and the Senses, Plasy Monastery, 12–14 October, 2018.

View the video

This performance comes from recordings of the clock tower mechanism of the baroque granary at Plasy Monastery. The unusual tempo of the clock differs from the tempo at which second hands today operate. This machinistic disturbance is like an acoustic time machine that allows us to travel beyond the boundaries of spacetime into a deep contemplation. The recordings are manipulated live, creating a dialog between individual time divisions.

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