Exploring subjectivity and territory through sound, bridging acoustic
processes with digital communication.
prepared in collaboration with FAMU (Open EYE visiting lecturers project), Four Days in Motion Festival, Bienale Industrial Vesitges and Galerie Školská.
gathering for the workshop Friday October 9th at 10 AM at the Skolska28 gallery.
'New Maps of Time' is a project and workshop about mapping architectural and urban spaces using sound, then representing these actions in a multimedia performance. The project process works with the basic understanding that artistic creativity can be a ritual, by which we live out and share the subjectivity of our own experiences. This inherent subjectivity must be understood not only as an intellectual notion but through means of participatory activity on different levels of personal, collaborative (between artists) and contextual actions (interventions in a space).
Sound, as perceived by one of our primary senses hearing, is one of the best ways in which to explore the subjectivity of personal and collective experience and to test our own creative abilities. By using sound we develop means to map both space and social relations with our own cognitive process. In order to refine these cognitive maps we introduce constraints such as activities, materials, durations and the physical dimensions of the surrounding build environment. These constraints are the boundaries by which we can reference our own activities for interpretation and discussion to help further refine the activities.
In addition, we employ more objective external references (commonly known as recorded media) to add to the mix. The plethora of digital media recording devices offer a set of tools from which to develop an array audio-visual narratives for sharing on the local level and throughout any network these devices may be connected. Both processes, the cognitive and the mediated aim to increase the level at which we find recursive modes of information exchange integrated with the artistic working method.
The project involves spending a few days in and around the city of Prague and Kladno, mapping various abandoned industrial spaces through sound by using simple objects (glass jars, plates, wires, found objects etc...). I wish use the same set of objects, but play them in different spaces. I would like to work with a small team of students or local artists to help play these objects as a sort of free-form ensemble who gets to develop their abilities through the activities of the project. These participants can be from CZ or artists from abroad. We will record these actions and keep a record of the times and places where they took place (and make short films from video recordings as well).
The actions will involve generating acoustic sounds and patterns from the objects we have and/or find in the space to activate each location. Working together we will explore the balance between our gestures and movements to create sounds and the intelligibility by which we communicate through sounds (this has been thoroughly explored in various workshops. See the documentation from the "Sound as Space, Sound as Language" workshop
maahli
At the end of each action the working group would evaluate their experiences in a short discussion session as well as by listening to or watching the recordings. A selection of the recordings would be made and edited for the potentially use in the final performance lecture. The sound recordings would also be uploaded on the internet to The Prague Favourite sounds, or Radio Aporee Maps.
This would give an "objective" view from areal satellite maps of the different locations.
Performance/Lecture
Locations: Prague, during the festival Four days in Motion, the building of the former parlament. Galerie Školská, FAMU, or/and Kladno in and around the Mayrau Mining Museum.
The final presentation phase "New Maps of Time" performance/lecture on the "sound mapping" process using the various materials collected and edited during the residency including sounds, video, PFS website, Radio Aporee, and even the objects used. This mix of material offers a representative experience of the workshop as compressed time, a nonlinear narrative with which to engage the public. As much as possible, the presentation space itself would be transformed into an instrument, a hollow body to enter and and be transported to the spaces and shared experiences of the working group from the previous weeks.
sound piece in Majrovka
Zvuková akce ve Stromovce
Project duration cca 5 days
bio John Grzinich, b. 1970, new york state, lives and works in Estonia
sound-video artist photographer, artproject coordinator
Have worked primarily with sound composition, performance and installation since the early 1990s and performed and worked on projects extensively throughout Europe and the US and have published a number of CDs of my compositions on such labels as SIRR (PT), Staalplaat (NL), Edition Sonoro (UK), CUT (CH), CMR (NZ), erewhon (BE), Intransitive Recordings (US), Orogenetics (US), Elevator Bath (US), Pale-Disc (JP), Digital Narcis (JP) Taalem (FR), and Cloud of Statics(CH). Currently he is a project coordinator for MoKS – Center for Art and Social Practice , an artist-run international residency center and project space in southeast Estonia.
